Analysis of thick composite laminates using a higher-order shear and normal deformable plate theory (HOSNDPT) and a meshless method

The meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method with radial basis functions (RBFs), and the higher order shear and normal deformable plate theory (HOSNDPT) are used to analyze static infinitesimal deformations of thick laminated composite elastic plates under different boundary conditions. Two types of RBFs, namely, multiquadrics (MQ) and thin plate splines (TPS), are employed for constructing trial functions while a fourth order spline function is used as the test function. Computed results for different lamination schemes are found to match well with those obtained by other researchers. A benefit of using RBFs over those generated by the moving least squares approximation is that no special treatment is needed to impose essential boundary conditions, which substantially reduces the computational cost. Furthermore, the MLPG method does not require nodal connectivity which reduces the time required to prepare the input data. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.