Accurate Determination of Tranverse Normal Stresses in Sandwich Panels Subjected to Thermomechanical Loadings

A two-stage computational procedure is presented for the accurate determination of transverse normal stresses in sandwich panels subjected to thermomechanical loadings. The procedure involves the use of a first-order shear deformation model in the first stage, and an iterational process for successive improvement of the accuracy of the displacement and stress fields in the second stage. The effectiveness of the procedure is demonstrated by means of numerical studies (if thin and moderately thick flat rectangular sandwich panels. Two sets of boundary conditions are considered; namely, one with all edges simply supported. and the other with two opposite edges simply supported and the remaining two clamped. The displacement components and the transverse shear and normal stresses obtained by the proposed computational procedure are found to be in close agreement with the Solutions of the three-dimensional (3-D) continuum models.