Meshless Methods Coupled with Other Numerical Methods

Meshless or mesh-free (or shorten as MFree) methods have been proposed and achieved remarkable progress over the past few years. The idea of combining MFree methods with other existing numerical techniques such as the finite element method (FEM) and the boundary element method (BEM), is naturally of great interest in many practical applications. However, the shape functions used in some MFree methods do not have the Kronecker delta function property. In order to satisfy the combined conditions of displacement compatibility, two numerical techniques, using the hybrid displacement shape function and the modified variational form, are developed and discussed in this paper. In the first technique, the original MFree shape functions are modified to the hybrid forms that possess the Kronecker delta function property. In the second technique, the displacement compatibility is satisfied via a modified variational form based on the Lagrange multiplier method. Formulations of several coupled methods are presented. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present coupling methods.