Thermoelastic Analysis of a Rectangular Plate with Nonhomogeneous Material Properties and Internal Heat Source

This article deals with the determination of temperature distribution, displacement and thermal stresses of a rectangular plate having nonhomogeneous material properties with internal heat generation. The plate is subjected to sectional heating. All the material properties except Poisson’s ratio and density are assumed to be given by a simple power law along x direction. Solution of the two-dimensional heat conduction equation is obtained in the transient state. Integral transform method is used to solve the system of fundamental equation of heat conduction. The effects of inhomogeneity on temperature and thermal stress distributions are examined. For theoretical treatment, all the physical and mechanical quantities are taken as dimensional, whereas for numerical computations we have considered non-dimensional parameters. The transient state temperature field and its associated thermal stresses are discussed for a mixture of copper and zinc metals in the ratio 70:30 respectively. Numerical calculations are carried out for both homogeneous and nonhomogeneous cases and are represented graphically.