A natural neighbour meshless method with a 3D shell-like approach in the dynamic analysis of thin 3D structures

This work presents the dynamic analysis of three-dimensional plate and shell structures based on an improved meshless method, the Natural Neighbour Radial Point Interpolation Method (NNRPIM) using a shell-like formulation. In the NNRPIM, the nodal connectivity is imposed using the natural neighbours concept. An integration background mesh is constructed, totally node-dependent, and used in the numerical integration of the NNRPIM interpolation functions, which possess the delta Kronecker property. Several dynamic plate and shell problems are studied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.