BENDING ANALYSIS OF THICK PLATE ON THE ELASTIC FOUNDATION BY THE MESHLESS RADIAL POINT INTERPOLATION METHOD

Bending problem of thick plate on the Pasternak elastic foundation is analyzed by the meshless radial point interpolation method in this paper. The global Galerkin weak-form equation of isotropic thick plate on the elastic foundation is established based on Mindlin plate theory and the minimum total potential energy principle. The shape functions constructed using the radial point interpolation method (RPIM) possess Kronecker Delta function properties, so the essential boundary conditions can be easily imposed. The background mesh is required in performing the integral of the stiffness matrix. Numerical examples show that the presented method has such advantages as high efficiency , good accuracy and easy implementation.