Element free method for static and free vibration analysis of spatial thin shell structures Original Research Article

The implementation of the element free Galerkin method (EFG) for spatial thin shell structures is presented in this paper. Both static deformation and free vibration analyses are considered. The formulation of the discrete system equations starts from the governing equations of stress resultant geometrically exact theory of shear flexible shells. Moving least squares approximation is used in both the construction of shape functions based on arbitrarily distributed nodes as well as in the surface approximation of general spatial shell geometry. Discrete system equations are obtained by incorporating these interpolations into the Galerkin weak form. The formulation is verified through numerical examples of static stress analysis and frequency analysis of spatial thin shell structures. For static load analysis, essential boundary conditions are enforced through penalty method and Lagrange multipliers while boundary conditions for frequency analysis are imposed through a weak form using orthogonal transformation techniques. The EFG results compare favorably with closed-form solutions and that of finite element analyses.