Thermal stresses in rectangular plates: variational and finite element solutions.

Abstract

This paper deals with the development of an approximate method for the analysis of thermal stresses in rectangular plates (plane stress problem) and an evaluation of the relative accuracy of the finite element method. The stress function is expanded in terms of polynomial coordínate functions which identically satisfy the boundary conditions, and a variational approach is used to determine the expansión coefficients. The results are in good agieement with a finite element approach.