Thermal bending of layered composite plates resting on elastic foundations using four-unknown shear and normal deformations theory

A refined plate theory as well as different plate theories is presented to study the thermoelastic response of multilayered cross-ply laminates and angle-ply sandwich plates. The effects of transverse shear strains as well as the transverse normal strain are taken into account. The number of unknown functions involved in the present theory is only four as against six or more in case of other shear and normal deformations theories. The plate is subjected to a sinusoidal temperature distribution and resting on Pasternak’s or Winkler’s elastic foundation models. The effects due to side-to-thickness ratio, aspect ratio, shear deformation, thermal loads and elastic foundations parameters as well as the variation of lamination angle are investigated.