Dynamic 3D axisymmetric problems in continuously non-homogeneous piezoelectric solids

The meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method is used to analyze transient dynamic problems in 3D axisymmetric piezoelectric solids with continuously inhomogeneous material properties. Both mechanical and thermal loads are considered here. A 3D axisymmetric body is created by rotation of a cross section around an axis of symmetry. Axial symmetry of geometry and boundary conditions reduces the original 3D boundary value problem into a 2D problem. The cross section is covered by small circular sub-domains surrounding nodes randomly spread over the analyzed domain. A unit step function is chosen as test function, in order to derive local integral equations on the boundaries of the chosen sub-domains, called local boundary integral equations (LBIE). These integral formulations are either based on the Laplace transform technique or the time-difference approach. The local integral equations are non-singular and take a very simple form, despite of inhomogeneous and anisotropic material behaviour across the analyzed structure. Spatial variation of all physical fields (or of their Laplace transforms) at discrete time instants are approximated on the local boundary and in the interior of the sub-domain by means of the moving least-squares (MLS) method. The Stehfest algorithm is applied for the numerical Laplace inversion, in order to retrieve the time-dependent solutions.