Bearing Capacity Analysis Using Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin Method

Abstract The paper deals with use of the meshless method for soil bearing capacity analysis. There are many formulations of the meshless methods. The article presents the Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin method (MLPG) - local weak formulation of the equilibrium equations. The main difference between meshless methods and the conventional finite element method (FEM) is that meshless shape functions are constructed using randomly scattered set of points without any relation between points. The Heaviside step function is test function used in the meshless implementation presented in the article. Heaviside test function makes weak formulation integral very simple, because only body integral in governing equation is due a body force.