Computation of Laminated Composite Plates using Integrated Radial Basis Function Networks

Abstract

This paper reports a meshless method, which is based on radial-basis-function networks (RBFNs), for the static analysis of moderately-thick laminated composite plates using the first-order shear deformation theory. Integrated RBFNs are employed to represent the field variables, and the governing equations are discretized by means of point collocation. The use of integration rather than conventional differentiation to construct the RBF approximations significantly stabilizes the solution and enhances the quality of approximation. The proposed method is verified through the solution of rectangular and non-rectangular composite plates. Numerical results obtained show that the method achieves a very high degree of accuracy and a fast convergence rate.