ON A NEW METHOD FOR AXISYMMETRIC COUPLED THERMOELASTIC PROBLEMS

Abstract

It is well known that the thermoelastic coupling term and the inertia term have to be taken into account in the treatment of problems involving a sudden change of temperature, such as thermal-shock problems. It is difficult to find the exact solution for coupled thermal-stress problems, and these have been solved only for the case of a one-dimensional temperature change such as in the semi-infinite regions. In the present paper, we show a new technique for the treatment of the coupled thermoelastic problem which can be applied to a two- or three-dimensional temperature field. As an illustration, we solve an axisymmetric coupled thermal-stress problem for an infinite solid cylinder with temperature changes in the radial and axial directions. The numerical results show that the thermoelastic coupling term has a considerable affect on the temperature and stress distributions.