Radial point interpolation method (RPIM) for timoshenko beam

Abstract

Differential equations are usually derived to describe the physical phenomena in engineering system. To solve these differential equations, numerical techniques such as Finite Element Method and Meshfree are adopted. This project emphasizes on the formulation of Timoshenko beam using radial point interpolation method (RPIM) which is then compared against finite element formulation. Timoshenko beam theory takes into consideration the transverse shear deformation which is ignored in the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Shear deformation effect is not negligible if the thickness of a beam becomes larger, so it is in the interest of this study to investigate the deformation of deep beam using RPIM formulation. Convergence study against FEM is conducted to asses the performance of RPIM. It has been found that the convergence to RPIM is comparable to FEM