Nonlinear zigzag theory for electrothermomechanical buckling of piezoelectric composite and sandwich plates (Q2501296)

The authors present an efficient coupled geometrically nonlinear zigzag theory for hybrid plates under electrothermomechanical load. The nonlinear theory is used to obtain the thermal buckling response of symmetrically laminated hybrid plates. Both open and closed circuit conditions are considered. The geometric nonlinearity is included due to the defection only in the sense of von Kármán. The potential and thermal fields are approximated as piecewise linear across a number of subdivisions in the layers. The deflection field is sub-layerwise quadratic which explicitly accounts for the transverse normal strain induced by electric and thermal fields.