Sensitivity of thermomechanical response to thermal boundary conditions and material constants

• Published in: International journal of solids and structures Vol. 15; no. 7; pp. 513 - 517
• Main Author: Young, Richard W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 1979
• ISSN: 0020-7683; 1879-2146
• DOI: 10.1016/0020-7683(79)90079-9

Forced vibrations of a thermoviscoelastic material give rise to nonlinear coupling between thermal and mechanical responses. In particular, the response of a rod of solid rocket propellant to axial vibrations includes several narrow frequency ranges characterized by rapid or even discontinuous increases in thermomechanical response. In this paper, the sensitivity of these critical frequency ranges to boundary condition modeling and to small changes in constitutive properties and ambient conditions is studied. It is found that the solution is somewhat sensitive to the temperature dependence in the thermoviscoelastic material law, but far more sensitive to the type of thermal boundary conditions imposed upon the problem.