Free vibration of moderately thick functionally graded plates by a meshless local natural neighbor interpolation method

Using a meshless local natural neighbor interpolation (MLNNI) method, natural frequencies of moderately thick plates made of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are analyzed in this paper based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), which is employed to take into account the transverse shear strain and rotary inertia. The material properties of the plates are assumed to vary across the thickness direction by a simple power rule of the volume fractions of the constituents. In the present method, a set of distinct nodes are randomly distributed over the middle plane of the considered plate and each node is surrounded by a polygonal sub-domain. The trial functions are constructed by the natural neighbor interpolation, which makes the constructed shape functions possess Kronecker delta property and thus no special techniques are required to enforce the essential boundary conditions. The order of integrands involved in domain integrals is reduced due to the use of three-node triangular FEM shape functions as test functions. The natural frequencies computed by the present method are found to agree well with those reported in the literature, which demonstrates the versatility of the present method for free vibration analysis of moderately thick functionally graded plates.