Thermal stresses in an infinite slab under an arbitrary thermal shock

A series of solution was derived that allows the calculation of the thermal transients and the resulting thermal-stresses caused by an arbitrary surface loading on a finite-thickness slab. The arbitrary nature of the thermal loading was allowed through the use of a polynomial that employed integral and half-order terms. The method appears well suited for complicated thermal shocks provided the analysis is restricted to the time interval used to determine the polynomial and the thermophysical properties do not vary with temperature.