BEAMS ON ELASTIC FOUNDATION USING ELEMENT FREE GALERKIN METHOD

Abstract

In this study, the Element-Free Galerkin (EFG) method has been used for the analysis of beams on elastic foundation problems. The elastic support can be provided in the form of a load-bearing medium such as soil, distributed continuously along the length of the beam. This type of supports can be found in a variety of engineering problems, for example in the case of actual foundations or in the case of railroad track. The main difficulty in the analysis of the soil foundation interaction lies in the determination of the contact pressure. A computer program has been developed by using FORTRAN language. The moving least squares (MLS) approximation has been used in generating shape functions. The results obtained by the EFG method have been compared with analytical solution.