An analytical study of the nonlinear thermo-mechanical behaviour of thin isotropic rectangular plates

•A simple model is developed for nonlinear thermo-mechanical analysis of plates.•Plate is assumed to be unrestrained or restrained against lateral translation.•The method may be used in a performance-based engineering framework as an alternative for prescriptive methods.

A simple mathematical approach is developed to model the nonlinear behaviour of thin isotropic rectangular plates in response to large thermoelastic deformations. A set of nonlinear equations are solved simultaneously to determine the plate responses to a thickness-dependent temperature field and/or a transverse mechanical loading. The plate is assumed to be unrestrained or restrained against lateral translation (in the plane of the plate) at all boundaries and free to rotate about the axes coincident with each boundary. It is shown that even without involving complex terms in the governing equations, the performance of the proposed method is very good.