A Quasi-Convex RKPM for 3D Steady-State Thermomechanical Coupling Problems

A meshless, quasi-convex reproducing kernel particle framework for three-dimensional steady-state thermomechanical coupling problems is presented in this paper. A meshfree, second-order, quasi-convex reproducing kernel scheme is employed to approximate field variables for solving the linear Poisson equation and the elastic thermal stress equation in sequence. The quasi-convex reproducing kernel approximation proposed by Wang et al. to construct almost positive reproducing kernel shape functions with relaxed monomial reproducing conditions is applied to improve the positivity of the thermal matrixes in the final discreated equations. Two numerical examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the developed method. The numerical results show that the solutions obtained by the quasi-convex reproducing kernel particle method agree well with the analytical ones, with a slightly better-improved numerical accuracy than the element-free Galerkin method and the reproducing kernel particle method. The effects of different parameters, i.e., the scaling parameter, the penalty factor, and node distribution on computational accuracy and efficiency, are also investigated.