Axiomatic/Asymptotic Analysis and Best Theory Diagrams for Laminated Plates/Shells Loaded by Mechanical, Thermal and Electrical Loadings

The purpose of the work described in this thesis is to decrease the computational cost of refined plate/shell models without loosing accuracy in the plate/shell response analysis. The axiomatic/asymptotic technique has been employed for this purpose. The refined models have been obtained by means of the Carrera Unified Formulation and both the Principle of Virtual Displacement (PVD) and the Reissner Mixed Variational Theorem (RMVT) have been employed to derive the governing equations. Mechanical and multifield problems are considered. Navier-like closed form solutions has been employed, and for this reason simply supported isotropic and orthotropic plates and shells has been considered. The refined models analyzed have been implemented according to the schemes known as Equivalent Single Layer and Layer Wise. In some case, the accuracy of the reduced refined models have been compared to the refined models available in the open scientific literature.