Thermal effects on geometrically nonlinear vibrations of rectangular plates with fixed edges

Nonlinear forced vibrations and postbuckling of isotropic rectangular plates subjected to thermal variations are studied. Geometric imperfections are taken into account since they play a fundamental role. The plate is modelled by using the Von Kármán hypothesis and the equations of motion are obtained by using an energy approach. Plates with fixed edges and additional rotational elastic constraint are considered. A pseudo-arclength continuation method is used in order to obtain numerical results. Laboratory experiments have been performed on two plates of different thickness.