Adaptive analysis of plates and laminates using natural neighbor Galerkin meshless method

In this paper, natural neighbor Galerkin meshless method is employed for adaptive analysis of plates and laminates. The displacement field and strain field of plate are based on Reissner–Mindlin plate theory. The interpolation functions employed here were developed by Sibson and based on natural neighbor coordinates. An adaptive refinement strategy based on recovery energy norm which is in turn based on natural neighbors is employed for analysis of plates. The present adaptive procedure is applied to classical plate problems subjected to in-plane loads. In addition to that the laminated composite plates with cutouts subjected to transverse loads are investigated. Influence of the location of the cutout and the boundary conditions of the plate on the results have been studied. The results obtained with present adaptive analysis are accurate at lower computational effort when compare to that of no adaptivity. Further, the adaptive analysis provided accurate magnitude of maximum stresses and their locations in the laminate plates with and without cutout subjected to transverse loads. Additionally, failure prone areas in the geometry of the plates subjected to loads are revealed with the adaptive analysis.