Static and free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates using the conforming radial point interpolation method

In this paper, a mesh-free formulation for the static and free vibration analyses of composite plates is presented via a linearly conforming radial point interpolation method. The radial and polynomial basis functions are employed to construct the shape functions bearing Delta function property. A strain smoothing stabilization technique for nodal integration is employed to restore the conformability and to improve the accuracy and the rate of convergence. The present formulation is based on the first order shear deformation plate theory, with effective treatment for shear-locking and hence is applicable for both thin and relatively thick plates. To verify the accuracy and stability of the present formulation, intensive comparisons are made with existing results available in the literature and good agreements are obtained. The numerical examples have confirmed the significant features of the present method: (1) very stable and accurate for extremely distributed nodes; (2) shear-locking can be avoid very easily in the present formulation; (3) applicable for problems of complex domains. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.