Prevention of thermal bending of multilayered beams and plates

By adding an extra layer to multilayer beams or plates of different isotropic materials, it is possible to prevent the thermal bending of these materials. With the proper selection of thermoelastic properties the curvature produced prior to this addition would be eliminated. Several numerical examples are presented for various temperature distributions. A simple experiment was conducted, involving the addition of a brass strip to a bimetallic strip made of aluminum and steel at room temperature. The trimetal strip was placed in a furnace and remained straight for varying temperatures.