2D Thermoelastic solutions for laminates and sandwiches with interlayer delaminations and imperfect thermal contact

A matrix technique is used along with the linear theory of 2D thermo-elasticity to efficiently solve the steady-state thermo-mechanical problem in simply supported multi-layered wide plates and beams with an arbitrary number of imperfectly bonded layers and thermally imperfect interfaces. The method uses local transfer matrices and continuity conditions at the interfaces to establish explicit matrix relationships between the unknown integration constants in the solution of a generic layer and those of the first layer. The thermo-elasticity problem of a plate with many layers is then reduced to that of a single-layer plate whose solution can be obtained through the imposition of the boundary conditions. The explicit formulas derived in the chapter simplify the solution procedure and provide a framework to easily generate any desirable benchmark solutions for the verification of approximate theories.