Recently, there has been a strong interest in the development of a new class of meshfree methods. As an alternative to the finite element method (FEM), mainly due to elimination of high cost mesh generation processes. In addition, the size effect is currently a subject of increasing interest since it is an important parameter in predicting, correctly, the mechanical behavior of materials with microstructure. It was well established that classical linear elastic continua which neglects the higher order terms is not able to describe size effects. In contrast, enhanced continuum theories such as nonlocal or gradient-dependent models do involve an internal length scale. Thorough this length...
Recently, there has been a strong interest in the development of a new class of meshfree methods. As an alternative to the finite element method (FEM), mainly due to elimination of high cost mesh generation processes. In addition, the size effect is currently a subject of increasing interest since it is an important parameter in predicting, correctly, the mechanical behavior of materials with microstructure. It was well established that classical linear elastic continua which neglects the higher order terms is not able to describe size effects. In contrast, enhanced continuum theories such as nonlocal or gradient-dependent models do involve an internal length scale. Thorough this length...