The analysis of laminated plates using distinct advanced discretization meshless techniques

Composite laminated plates are structural elements with a high strength/weight ratio, being very popular in the aeronautic industry. This work analyses such structural elements using the finite element method, an approximation meshless method (the element free Galerkin method) and three interpolation meshless methods (the radial point interpolation method, the natural neighbor radial point interpolation method and the natural radial element method). Here, the displacement field of the plate is defined by an equivalent single layer theory - the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). Thus, a brief theoretical description of the advanced meshless techniques extended to the analysis of composite plates, considering a weak-form approach combined with the FSDT, is presented. In the end, several composite laminates are analyzed and the results obtained with the distinct numerical approaches are compared and discussed. The results show that meshless methods are capable to efficiently analyze composite laminated plates submitted to static loads under linear elastic regimes. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.