The analysis of composite laminated beams using a 2D interpolating meshless technique

Laminated composite materials are widely implemented in several engineering constructions. For its relative light weight, these materials are suitable for aerospace, military, marine, and automotive structural applications. To obtain safe and economical structures, the modelling analysis accuracy is highly relevant. Since meshless methods in the recent years achieved a remarkable progress in computational mechanics, the present work uses one of the most flexible and stable interpolation meshless technique available in the literature—the Radial Point Interpolation Method (RPIM). Here, a 2D approach is considered to numerically analyse composite laminated beams. Both the meshless formulation and the equilibrium equations ruling the studied physical phenomenon are presented with detail. Several benchmark beam examples are studied and the results are compared with exact solutions available in the literature and the results obtained from a commercial finite element software. The results show the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed numeric technique.