Thermo-elasticity in shell structures made of functionally graded materials

An efficient low-order finite shell element is derived for the thermo-elastic analysis of shell structures made of functionally graded materials or multilayer composites. It is based on a one-way coupling between the thermal and the mechanical analysis. The thermal quantities are evaluated using a new iterative scheme that properly accounts for convection boundary conditions and large gradients of the thermal conductivity. The resulting non-constant temperature field with respect to the thickness direction gives nodal forces and couples, which are applied on a shear weak six-parameter shell formulation. Here, drill rotations are included, supplemented with a proper method for calculating effective elastic properties. Numerical results indicate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach.