BENDING ANALYSIS OF THIN PLATES WITH VARIABLE THICKNESS RESTING ON ELASTIC FOUNDATION BY ELEMENT FREE GALERKIN METHOD

Element Free Galerkin method was used to analyze bending of thin plates with variable thickness resting on one parameter elastic foundation. Thickness of plate is considered as linearly varying in one direction. Formulation could be applied to plates of any shape with general boundary conditions and loadings. Convergence of solution was examined for different number of nodes, thickness variation and foundation parameters. It was found that for deflection good results were achieved even with small number of nodes regardless of boundary condition, thickness variation and foundation parameters. Accuracy of method is checked against available results and good agreements were found. Applicability of method is demonstrated by solving numerical examples with different boundary conditions, thickness and foundation parameters, and loadings.