Meshfree methods is a ‘hot’ topic. Over the last five years, there has been considerable research activity in the field especially in the US and more recently in Europe. This title provides vital information about this developing field including: * An integrated treatment of the fundamental methods such as least square approximations, partition of unity methods and kernel methods * An overview of the major methodologies that have been developed for solid and linear mechanics * Implementations and solution techniques * A thorough examination of the advantages and disadvantages of various methods