RBF-based meshless method for large deflection of thin plates

A simple, yet accurate, meshless method for the solution of thin plates undergoing large deflections is presented. The solution is based on the use of fifth order polynomial radial basis function to build an approximation for the solution of two coupled nonlinear differential equations governing the finite deflection of thin plates. The resulted nonlinear algebraic equations are solved using an incremental-iterative procedure. The accuracy and efficiency of the method is verified through several numerical examples.