Modeling and simulation of thermally actuated bilayer plates
For engineers designing thermally actuated compliant structures, this provides a practical simulation tool, though it is an incremental extension of existing plate models.
The paper presents a mathematical model for polymer bilayers that bend under thermal actuation, enabling simulation of folding in thin elastic structures. The model captures nonlinear bending effects and is discretized with standard plate elements.
We present a mathematical model of polymer bilayers that undergo large bending deformations when actuated by non-mechanical stimuli such as thermal effects. The simple model captures a large class of nonlinear bending effects and can be discretized with standard plate elements. We devise a fully practical iterative scheme and apply it to the simulation of folding of several practically useful compliant structures comprising of thin elastic layers.