A formulation of the multiquadric radial basis function method for the analysis of laminated composite plates

The multiquadric radial basis functions (MQ) method is a recent mesh-free collocation method with global basis functions. The MQ method for the solution of partial differential equations was first introduced by Kansa in the early 1990s and showed exponential convergence for interpolation problems. In this paper we formulate and discuss the MQ method to the solution of moderately thick rectangular laminated composite plates. Numerical results show the high accuracy of the MQ method in the analysis of this class of structural problems. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.