# Modeling and simulation of thermally actuated bilayer plates

## TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical model for thermally actuated polymer bilayer plates, enabling simulation of large bending deformations due to thermal stimuli, with practical discretization and iterative solution methods.

## Contribution

It introduces a new nonlinear bending model for thermally responsive bilayer plates and provides a practical simulation scheme for folding behaviors.

## Key findings

- Successfully simulates large thermal bending deformations.
- Demonstrates folding of practical compliant structures.
- Provides a discretization method suitable for engineering applications.

## Abstract

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.