Static and Transient Response Analysis of Arbitrary Laminated Composite and Sandwich Shells by the FSDT Meshless Method

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This paper, for the first time, presents a novel meshless method based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and moving-least squares (MLS) approximation to carry out static and transient response analysis on arbitrary laminated and sandwich shell structures. The novelty of the method lies in the implementation of MLS in the curvilinear shell formulation, and the derivation of meshless governing equations on the static and transient response of arbitrary laminated and sandwich shells according to the principle of minimum potential energy and Hamilton’s principle, respectively. The concept of a Convected coordinate system is adopted to deal with arbitrary curvilinear surfaces. Both the position and displacement vectors of shells are approximated by MLS, which is conceptually the same procedure as that in the isoparametric finite element method (FEM). The numerical integration of the stiffness matrices is conducted by the simple Gaussian integral in the Convected coordinate system. Because the moving-least squares (MLS) approximation does not satisfy the Kronecker delta condition, the full transformation method is used to modify the meshless governing equations. Numerical examples are calculated to investigate the static and transient response analysis of laminated and sandwich structures with different geometrical shell shapes, including square plates, spherical shells, doubly-curved shells, and cylindrical shells. The numerical tests show that the proposed method is reliable, and robust and produces accurate results compared to the analytical and numerical solutions taken from the previous literature.