Thermal effects on the bending response of fiber-reinforced viscoelastic composite plates using a sinusoidal shear deformation theory

The static thermo-viscoelastic responses of fiber-reinforced composite plates are investigated by the use of a refined shear deformation theory. In this theory, trigonometric terms are used for the displacements in addition to the initial terms of a power series through the thickness. The form of the assumed displacements of this theory is simplified by enforcing traction-free boundary conditions at the plate faces. No transverse shear correction factors are needed because a correct representation of the transverse shear strain is given. Using the method of effective moduli solves the equations governing the bending of simply supported fiber-reinforced viscoelastic composite plates. An exact closed-form solution is presented for plates subjected to nonuniform distributions of temperature. The validity of the present theory is demonstrated by comparison with solutions available in the literature. A wide variety of results are presented for the bending response of viscoelastic rectangular plates under thermal loads. The influences of plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, thermal expansion coefficients ratio and constitutive and volume fraction parameters on the thermally induced response are studied.