A review of meshless methods for laminated and functionally graded plates and shells

This review focuses mainly on the developments of element-free or meshless methods and their applications in the analysis of composite structures. This review is organized as follows: a brief introduction to shear deformation plate and shell theories for composite structures, covering the first-order and higher-order theories, is given in Section 2. A review of meshless methods is provided in Section 3, with main emphasis on the element-free Galerkin method and reproducing kernel particle method. The applications of meshless methods in the analysis of composite structures are discussed in Section 4, including static and dynamic analysis, free vibration, buckling, and non-linear analysis. Finally, the problems and difficulties in meshless methods and possible future research directions are addressed in Section 5. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.