The MLPG analyses of large deflections of magnetoelectroelastic plates

The von Karman plate theory of large deformations is applied to express the strains, which are then used in the constitutive equations for magnetoelectroelastic solids. The in-plane electric and magnetic fields can be ignored for plates. A quadratic variation of electric and magnetic potentials along the thickness direction of the plate is assumed. The number of unknown terms in the quadratic approximation is reduced, satisfying the Maxwell equations. Bending moments and shear forces are considered by the Reissner-Mindlin theory, and the original three-dimensional (3D) thick plate problem is reduced to a two-dimensional (2D) one. A meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method is applied to solve the governing equations derived based on the Reissner-Mindlin theory. Nodal points are randomly distributed over the mean surface of the considered plate. Each node is the centre of a circle surrounding it. The weak form on small subdomains with a Heaviside step function as the test function is applied to derive the local integral equations. After performing the spatial MLS approximation, a system of algebraic equations for certain nodal unknowns is obtained. Both stationary and time-harmonic loads are then analyzed numerically. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.