Thermally induced transitions to chaos in plate vibrations

The geometrically nonlinear vibrations of linear elastic and isotropic plates under the combined effect of thermal fields and mechanical excitations are analysed. With this purpose, a model based on a p-version, hierarchical, first-order shear deformation finite element is employed. The equations of motion are solved in the time domain by Newmark's implicit time integration method. The temperature and the amplitude of the mechanical excitation are varied, and transitions from periodic to non-periodic motions are found.