Modified Coupled Stress Thermal Bending Analysis of Bi-layer Thick Micro-Plates, A Finite Element Approach

The main object of this paper is to present a size-dependent finite element model to investigate thermal bending in bi-layer thick micro-plates. To this end, a four-node thick rectangular plate element are developed based on the modified couple stress and the first order shear deformation plate theories. The present element, which does not suffer from shear locking, has 60 degrees of freedom and satisfies C1 weak continuity conditions. Hiring the developed element, thermal bending of simply supported bi-layer rectangular micro-plates are studied. A convergence study is then conducted to emphasis on the accuracy of the present model. The present findings are compared and successfully validated by those simulated using Ansys FE commercial software for cases with zero material length scale parameter