NONLINEAR BENDING ANALYSIS OF FOLDED PLATE STRUCTURES BY THE MOVING-LEAST SQUARE MESHFREE METHOD

A moving-least square meshfree method to study the nonlinear bending behaviour of folded plate structures is introduced in this paper. A folded plate is simulated as an assembly of flat plates that lie in different planes. Based on von Karman's large deflection theory, the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and the moving-least square approximation, the geometric nonlinear behaviour of the flat plates is investigated. By supposing the modified nonlinear stiffness matrices of the flat plates, the nonlinear stiffness matrix of the entire structure is derived and the nonlinear bending problem of the structure can then be solved. Because the constraint from mesh is removed, the proposed method can avoid remeshing due to mesh disorder. Several examples are employed to show the accuracy of the proposed method. The results given by the proposed method are found to be close to those from ANSYS FEM nonlinear analysis using shell elements.