Fast multipole boundary element method for electrostatic field computations

Finite Element Method (FEM1) is pervasively used in most of 3D product design analysis, in which Computer Aided Design (CAD) models need to be converted in to mesh models first and then enriched with some material features and boundary conditions data, etc. The interaction between CAD models and FEM models is intensive. Boundary Element Method (BEM) has been expected to be advantageous in large-scale problems in recent years owing to its reduction of the dimensionality and its reduced complexity in mesh generation. However, the BEM application has so far been limited to relatively small problems due to the memory and computational complexity for matrix buildup are O(N2). The fast multipole BEM (FMBEM) combined with BEM and fast multipole method (FMM) can overcome the defect of the traditional BEM, and provides an effective method to solve the large-scale problem. Combining GPU parallel computing with FMBEM can further improve its efficiency significantly. Based on the three-dimensional elastic mechanics problems, the parallelisms of the multipole moment (ME), multipole moment to multipole moment (M2M) translation, multipole moment to local expansion (M2L) translation, local expansion to local expansion (L2L) translation and near-field direct calculation were analyzed respectively according to the characteristics of the FMM, and the parallel strategies under CUDA were presented in this paper. Three main major parts are included herein: (1) FMBEM theory in 3D elastostatics, (2) the parallel FMBEM algorithm using CUDA, and (3) comparison the GPU parallel FMBEM with BEM, FEM and FMBEM respectively by engineering examples. Numerical example results show the 3D elastostatics GPU FMBEM not only can speed up the boundary element calculation process, but also save memory which can be effective to solve the large-scale engineering problems.

An adaptive dual-information FMBEM for 3D elasticity and its GPU implementation

A modified dual-level fast multipole boundary element method based on the Burton–Miller formulation for large-scale three-dimensional sound field analysis

A fast multilevel multipole algorithm (FMM) is derived for the Helmholtz equation and adopted to the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method (BEM) for acoustics.The FMM allows to evaluate a matrix-vector product of the BEM with a computational cost of O(N log 2 N ), thus leading to a significant reduction of computation time and memory requirements compared to standard BEM formulations.This allows the simulation of large scale acoustic models.A coupling algorithm based on Lagrange multipliers is proposed for the simulation of structure-acoustic field interaction.Finite plate elements are coupled to a Galerkin boundary element formulation of the acoustic domain.The interface pressure is interpolated as a Lagrange multiplier, thus, allowing the coupling of non-matching grids.The resulting saddle point problem is solved by an approximate Uzawa-type scheme in which the matrix-vector products of the boundary element operators are evaluated efficiently by the fast multipole boundary element method.The algorithm is demonstrated on the example of a cavity backed elastic panel.

It is suitable to solve the acoustic problems by using the fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM), since the FMBEM can accelerate the matrix-vector multiplication dramatically by reducing the CPU time and memory of conventional boundary element method to O(N log2N) and O(N) respectively. We propose a 3D acoustic FMBEM based on Burton-Miller formulation in this paper. A new adaptive algorithm is applied to the diagonal form FMBEM, and a new proposed analytical moment formulation is used in the moment computation. Both of them further improve the efficiency of FMBEM. Acoustic scattering of soft sphere at resonant frequency is investigated to validate the accuracy of solution using Burton-Miller formulation. Comparisons of solution to the multi-radiating spheres problem with the one solved by Bapat's program demonstrate the accuracy and the efficiency of our algorithm in solving large-scale acoustic problems. In the end, we use our algorithm to analyze the inner sound filed of a car and dolphin acoustic scattering.

A numerical solution for the diffraction of linear waves around a vertical cylinder is presented in this paper using the fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM). The fast multipole method (FMM) is employed to accelerate the traditional boundary element method. The accuracy and efficiency of the FMBEM for 2D Helmholtz equation is demonstrated, and it’s proved that this approach is suitable for solving large-scaled problems. In addition, numerical results of water dynamics coefficients, which are related to the diffraction problems of linear waves around a cylinder, are supplied in this paper.

Standard numerical models in acoustics rely on the isentropic Helmholtz equation. Its derivation assumes adiabatic and reversible, i.e., dissipation-free, wave propagation. Sound waves in fluids are, however, subject to viscous and thermal losses. These losses originate from viscous friction and heat conduction, leading to the formation of acoustic boundary layers. Considering these effects becomes significant in setups with acoustic cavities of similar dimension as the boundary layers. Recently, boundary element methods (BEM) accounting for the viscothermal dissipation have been proposed. These methods limit the discretization to the surface of the fluid domain and require significantly fewer degrees of freedom than comparable finite element models. However, the BEM coefficient matrices are fully populated, resulting in high computational costs and storage requirements. This study develops a new BEM formulation for acoustics in viscothermal fluids that uses the fast multipole method - a low-rank approximation technique based on a hierarchical subdivision of the computational domain - to alleviate this shortcoming. It is shown that the fast viscothermal BEM improves the algorithmic complexity over the conventional formulation, reducing both the memory requirements and solution time. The results indicate good scalability of the method making it feasible for larger applications such as acoustic metamaterials.

The complex variable fast multipole boundary element method for the analysis of strongly inhomogeneous media

Fast multipole boundary element method using the binary tree structure with tight bounds: application to a calculation of an electrostatic force for the manipulation of a metal micro particle ☆

This paper describes an application of the fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM) in simulating the viscoelastic behavior of asphalt concrete (AC). FMBEM has some merits including easy meshing of complicated geometries, accuracy in solving singular fields, high calculation efficiency, and low data storage requirements. These merits lead to many applications in multiple time-step and multi-inclusion problems, such as prediction of AC creep behavior. In this paper, a fast multipole formulation and an algorithm for two-dimensional linear viscoelastic problems are introduced first. To consider the bonding between the asphalt matrix and aggregates, a viscoelastic interface model is used to simulate the interfacial imperfection. A numerical model of asphalt concrete is then constructed based on image processing techniques, and the model is capable of taking into account the effects of the size and content of the air voids. The creep compliance of AC is predicted by the developed FMBEM arithmetic and subsequently compared with the experimental results. It has been shown that the developed method can describe and simulate the correct creep evolutionary trend of AC. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943- 5533.0000603. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers. CE Database subject headings: Asphalts; Concrete; Micromechanics; Viscoelasticity; Imaging techniques; Boundary element method. Author keywords: Asphalt concrete; Micromechanics; Fast multipole boundary element method; Viscoelastic properties; Image processing technique.

The surface electric field analysis of the converter valve shield system is a large-scale electrostatic field problem, which is difficult to analyse. The fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM), which is suitable for solving large-scale problems, can accelerate the computation speed and conserve memory. However, the coefficient matrix implicitly formed by using the FMBEM is sometimes ill-conditioned, especially for large-scale problems; thus, the convergence of iteration is poor. In this paper, a fast solver is proposed to improve efficiency. First, an adaptive GMRES( m ) with variant restart parameter is adjusted for the Galerkin FMBEM. In addition, the sparse approximate inverse preconditioner is improved, and a new sparsity pattern is proposed for the multiscale problem derived from the converter valve shield system. The numerical results show that the accuracy can meet the engineering requirements compared with the finite element method. Compared with other solvers and preconditioners, the algorithm can achieve a satisfactory convergence rate and reduce the computation time. In addition, a single bridge shield system of ±160 kV converter valve is successfully analysed using the proposed method.

The boundary element method (BEM) is a numerical method for solving boundary-value or initial-value problems formulated by use of boundary integral equations. In the BEM, only the boundaries - that is, surfaces for three-dimensional problems or curves for two dimensional (2D) problems - of a problem domain need to be discretized. However the boundary element method (BEM) has been limited to solving problems with a few thousand degrees of freedom (DOFs) on a personal computer. This is because the conventional BEM, in general, produces dense and nonsymmetric matrices. The main idea of the fast multipole (FM) BEM is to employ iterative solvers to solve the BEM system of equations. Using this method we can solve models with more than one million equations on a laptop computer. In this paper, the governing equations for elasticity problems are reviewed first. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiencies of fast multipole method (FMM) for solving 2D elasticity problems.

We propose a fast implementation of the boundary element method for solving the Poisson equation, which approximately determines the electrostatic field around solvated molecules of arbitrary shape. The method presented uses computational resources of order O(N) only, where N is the number of elements representing the dielectric boundary at the molecular surface. The method is based on the Fast Multipole Algorithm by Rokhlin and Greengard, which is used to calculate the Coulombic interaction between surface elements in linear time. We calculate the solvation energies of a sphere, a small polar molecule, and a moderately sized protein. The values obtained by the boundary element method agree well with results from finite difference calculations and show a higher degree of consistency due to the absence of grid dependencies. The boundary element method can be taken to a much higher accuracy than is possible with finite difference methods and can therefore be used to verify their validity. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Boundary element method is one of the most powerful tools to solve partial differential equations. However, it takes a lot of computational time when applied to a problem with a large number of unknowns. In this paper, we adopted the binary tree structure with tight bounds and the downward pass for that structure for the fast multipole method to reduce the number of M2L translations. The fast multipole boundary element method using the binary tree structure with tight bounds is developed and the analyses of an electrostatic force acting on a matal micro particle above a complex structure to confirm the effectiveness of this method.

—By employing the analysis of storage and computation time in fast multi-pole algorithm, this article introduces a new fast multi-pole algorithm to solve the problem of large computation time in multi-pole transfer process of the original fast multi-pole boundary element method. The new method uses the index expansion form to complete the transfer process of multi-pole moments at the expense of a small amount of storage. The obtained computational efficiency is significantly improved. Finally, the two-dimensional plate capacitor model is used to verify the precision of the authors’ method, and the three-dimensional spherical capacitor model is used to verify the superiority of the new fast multi-pole algorithm in solving multi-freedom electric field distribution problems. The electric field distribution of a 110 kV substation switching field model is calculated by using the new fast multi-pole algorithm. Compared with the calculated and measured values, the error is less than 10% upon optimization of the model; therefore, this method is better able to solve large-scale, multi degree-of-freedom problems.