Error analysis of the reproducing kernel particle method

Interest in meshfree (or meshless) methods has grown rapidly in recent years in solving boundary value problems (BVPs) arising in mechanics, especially in dealing with difficult problems involving large deformation, moving discontinuities, etc. In this paper, we provide a theoretical analysis of the reproducing kernel particle method (RKPM), which belongs to the family of meshfree methods. One goal of the paper is to set up a framework for error estimates of RKPM. We introduce the concept of a regular family of particle distributions and derive optimal order error estimates for RKP interpolants on a regular family of particle distributions. The interpolation error estimates can be used to yield error estimates for RKP solutions of BVPs.