Geometric non-linear analysis of folded plate structures by the spline strip kernel particle method

This paper investigates the geometric non-linear behaviour of stiffened and un-stiffened folded plate structures using the spline strip kernel particle method (SSKPM). The first-order shear deformable plate theory and large deflection theory of von Karman are employed. The folded plate structures are considered as assemblies of individual stiffened and un-stiffened flat plates that lie on different planes. We regard these stiffened and un-stiffened plate structures as superelements, and superpose their stiffness matrices to derive the final global stiffness matrices. Several numerical example problems are examined, and comparison studies are carried out with other available results. The effect of the size of the support, the order of the polynomial basis functions, and the spacing of the spline nodes on the convergence of the proposed method is examined. Copyright q 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.