A Port-Hamiltonian formulation of linear thermoelasticity and its mixed finite element discretization

A port-Hamiltonian formulation for general linear coupled thermoelasticity and for the thermoelastic bending of thin structures is presented. The construction exploits the intrinsic modularity of port-Hamiltonian systems to obtain a formulation of linear thermoelasticity as an interconnection of the elastodynamics and heat equations. The derived model can be readily discretized by using mixed finite elements. The discretization is structure-preserving, since the main features of the system are retained at a discrete level. The proposed model and discretization strategy are validated against a benchmark problem of thermoelasticity, the Danilovskaya problem.