$meshfree particle methods for thin plates$

We also prove error estimates for the proposed meshfree methods. In this paper, by using generalized product partition of unity, introduced by Oh et al., we introduce meshfree particle methods in which approximation functions have high order polynomial reproducing property and the Kronecker delta property. Meshfree methods have the advantage of constructing smooth approximation functions, however, most of the earlier works on meshfree methods for plate problems used either moving least squares method with penalty method or coupling FEM with meshfree method to deal with essential boundary conditions. Hence, the conventional finite element method has difficulties to solve the fourth order problems.

The vertical displacement of a thin plate is governed by a fourth order elliptic equation and thus the approximation functions for numerical solutions are required to have continuous partial derivatives. In this paper, we are concerned with meshfree particle methods for the solutions of the classical plate model.

Meshfree particle methods for thin plates