JOURNAL OF REINFORCED PLASTICS AND COMPOSITES, vol.27, no.1, pp.51-67, 2008 (SCI-Expanded)
The aim of this study was to investigate of the effect on thermal and residual stresses of parabolic temperature loading in a thermoplastic composite disc. It was reinforced by steel-fibers as unidirectional for radial direction. The finite element method (FEM) was used to estimate the thermal elastic, elasto-plastic, and also the residual stress distributions in the selected model of the composite disc. Consequently, the thermal stress analysis was carried out using ANSYS finite element software. The temperature loading was selected to vary parabolically from inner surface to outer surface along the radial sections. Different values of it were effected in the disc model. Thermal loading was chosen from 80 degrees C to 120 degrees C. Because of the composite disc having different thermal expansions in radial and tangential directions, thermal stresses were produced in it by the applied thermal loadings. The values of the tangential stress components both elastic and elasto-plastic solutions were higher than the radial stress components. Besides, the residual stress components were calculated using elastic and elasto-plastic solution results. The results obtained showed that the magnitude of thermal and residual stresses considerably increased parabolic temperature loadings.