Abstract
A study of static deformations and free vibrations of shear flexible isotropic and laminated composite plates with a refined shear deformation theory is presented. The analysis is based on a numerical scheme where collocation by radial basis functions is viewed as a pseudospectral method to produce highly accurate results. A cross-validation technique is used to optimize the shape parameter for the basis functions. Numerical results for isotropic and symmetric laminated composite plates are presented and discussed for various thickness-to-length ratios.