Mathematical Method of a New Fast BEM for 2D Potential Problems

An adaptive cell-based domain integration method for treatment of domain integrals in 3D boundary element method for potential and elasticity problems

Solutions of 2D and 3D non-homogeneous potential problems by using a boundary element-collocation method

Approximating three-dimensional steady-state potential flow problems using two-dimensional complex polynomials

The boundary element method (BEM) is an efficient numerical method that approximates solutions of various boundary value problems. Despite its success little research has been performed on the conditioning of the linear systems that appear in the BEM. For a Laplace equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions a remarkable phenomenon is observed; the corresponding boundary integral equation (BIE) is singular for a certain critical size of the 2D domain. As a consequence the discrete counterpart of the BIE, the linear system, is singular too, or at least ill-conditioned. This is reflected by the condition number of the system matrix, which is infinitely large, or at least very large. When the condition number of the BEM-matrix is large, the linear system is difficult to solve and the solution of the system is very sensible to perturbations in the boundary data. For a Laplace equation with mixed boundary conditions a similar phenomenon is observed. The corresponding BEM-matrix consists of two blocks; one block originates from the BEM-matrix belonging to the Dirichlet problem, the other block originates from the BEM-matrix belonging to the Neumann problem. The composite matrix inherits the solvability problems from the Dirichlet block. In other words, for the Laplace equation with mixed boundary conditions there exists also a critical size of the 2D domain for which the BEM-matrix has an infinitely large condition number. Hence the size and shape of the domain affects the solvability of the BEM problem. The critical size of the domain for which the BIE becomes singular is related to the logarithmic capacity of the domain. The logarithmic capacity is a positive real number that is a function of the size and shape of the domain. If this logarithmic capacity is equal to one, the domain is a critical domain, and for this domain the BIE becomes singular. Thus by computing the logarithmic capacity we can a-priori determine whether the BIE will be singular or not. The logarithmic capacity depends linearly on the scale of the domain, and thus a domain with logarithmic capacity equal to one can always be found by rescaling the domain. Unfortunately the logarithmic capacity can only be computed analytically for a few simple domains; for more involved domains the logarithmic capacity can be estimated though. There are several possibilities to avoid large condition numbers, i.e. singular BIEs that appear at critical domains. The first option is to rescale the domain such that the logarithmic capacity is unequal to one. One can also add a supplementary condition to the BIE and the linear system. A drawback of this option is that the linear system has more equations than unknowns and different techniques are required to solve the system. A third option is to slightly modify the fundamental solution of the Laplace operator. This fundamental solution directly appears in the BIE and it can be shown that a suitable modification yields BIEs that do not become singular. The critical domains for which the BIEs become singular do not restrict to Laplace equations only. Also for BIEs applied to the biharmonic equation or the elastostatic equations and the Stokes equations such critical domains exist. As the last two equations are vectorial equations, also the corresponding BIE consists of two equations. As a consequence two critical domains can be found for which these BIEs become singular. To obtain nonsingular BIEs techniques similar to the Laplace case can be used. Unfortunately we cannot a-priori determine the sizes for which the BIEs becomes singular, and thus do not know to what size we should rescale the domain to obtain nonsingular BIEs. The existence of critical domains is in essence caused by the logarithmic term in the fundamental solutions for the elliptic boundary value problems in 2D. This logarithmic term does not depend linearly on the size of the domain. When a domain is scaled, i.e. multiplied by a scale factor, the argument of the logarithm is also multiplied by this scale factor, but the logarithm turns this into an additive term. Thus the logarithm transforms multiplication into addition. This affects the BIEs in such a way that critical domains can appear. The fundamental solutions of boundary value problems in 3D do not contain a logarithmic term. Hence scaling of the domain does not affect the fundamental solution, and consequently also the BIE is not affected. Hence we may safely rescale 3D domains without the risk to encounter a critical domain. An example in which a domain takes many different sizes and shapes is the blowing problem. In this problem a viscous fluid is blown to a desired shape. Typically the time is discretised into a set of discrete time steps, and at each step the shape of the fluid is computed by solving the Stokes equations. When attempting to simulate this problem in 2D, we meet a large number of 2D domains, and we risk that one of these domains is equal to or approaches a critical domain. In such a case the BEM will have difficulties with solving the Stokes equations for that particular domain. When simulating the blowing problem in 3D, no critical domains are encountered. It turns out that the BEM is a very efficient numerical method for this particular 3D problem with a moving boundary. As we are merely interested in the shape of the fluid, we only need to know the flow of its boundary. The BEM does exactly that; it does not compute the flow at the interior of the fluid. Furthermore it is rather easy to include other effects from the blowing problem in the model, such as gravity, surface tension and friction from the contact of the fluid with a wall. As only the boundary of the fluid is discretised, the system matrices that appear in the BEM are smaller than the system matrices that appear when solving the problem with a finite element method, for example. Though the BEM-matrices are dense, while the finite element matrices are sparse, the computational effort for the BEM is relatively low. In short, the BEMis a very appropriate numerical method when solving blowing problems.

When an oscillating foil is placed in a uniform and steady flow, due to its heave and pitching motion, it produce a downstream flow at trailing edge, which leads to a forward force or thrust. Many fishes or insects use this phenomenon to move in air/water. It has proved that the heave and pitch frequency is very important parameter to produce thrust which should be chosen sharply. In this paper a 2D airfoil with oscillating movement was simulated and power/thrust coefficient was calculated. An unsteady numerical model based on boundary element method (BEM) was developed to simulate the flow around the foil. Two different conditions (with different angles of attack, =5, 10) were chosen for the flapping airfoil. For each condition, the foil was oscillated with 8 different frequencies to draw the thrust and power coefficients. The results were compared with experimental data and a finite volume-based solver. It could be seen that however FVM is more precisions to simulate such a hydrodynamics cases but for lifting bodies objects such as airfoil, BEM offers reasonable accuracy. In addition, one of the best advantages of BEM is its speed in calculation. Considering BEM just used 100 boundary cells in simulations, it is about 30 times faster than FVM, which means BEM could be used in rough estimations and preliminary calculations.

To solve boundary integral equations for potential problems using collocation Boundary Element Method (BEM) on smooth curved 3D geometries, an analytical singularity extraction technique is employed. By adopting the isoparametric approach, curved geometries that are represented by mapped rectangles or triangles from the parametric domain are considered. The singularity extraction on the governing singular integrals can be performed either as an operation of subtraction or division, each having some advantage.A particular series expansion of a singular kernel about a source point is investigated. The series in the parametric coordinates consists of functions of a type Rpxqyr, where R is a square root of a quadratic bivariate homogeneous polynomial with coefficients corresponding to the first fundamental form of a smooth surface, and p,q,r are integers, satisfying p≤−1 and q,r≥0. By extracting more terms from the series expansion of the singular kernel, the smoothness of the regularized kernel at the source point can be increased. Analytical formulae for integrals of such terms are obtained from antiderivatives of Rpxqyr, using recurrence formulae, and by evaluating them at the edges of rectangular or triangular parametric domains.Numerical tests demonstrate that the singularity extraction technique can be a useful prerequisite for a numerical quadrature scheme to obtain high order of convergence for the governing singular integrals in 3D collocation BEM with respect to the number of quadrature nodes or with respect to size of the discretization mesh cells.

The boundary element method (BEM) divides only the boundaries of the region under investigation into elements, so it diminishes the dimensionality of the problem, e.g., the 3D problem becomes a 2D problem, and the 2D problem becomes a 1D problem. This simplifies inputting the model into a computer and greatly reduces the number of algebraic equations. The advantage of this is even more evident for some 3D and infinite regional problems that often are encountered in geophysics. Originally published in China, this well-organized book is likely the most comprehensive work on the subject of solving applied geophysical problems. Basic mathematical principles are introduced in Chapter 1, followed by a general yet thorough discussion of the BEM in Chapter 2. Chapters 3 through 7 introduce the applications of BEM to solve problems of potential-field continuation and transformation, gravity and magnetic anomalies modeling, electric resistivity and induced polarization field modeling, magnetotelluric modeling, and various seismic modeling problems. Finally, in Chapter 8, a brief discussion is provided on how to incorporate the BEM and the finite-element method (FEM) together. In each chapter, detailed practical examples are given, and comparisons to both analytic and other numerical solutions are presented. This is an excellent book for numerically oriented geophysicists and for use as a textbook in numerical-analysis classes.

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.

PurposeTwo-dimensional (2D) problems are governed by unsteady anisotropic modified-Helmholtz equation of time–space dependent coefficients are considered. The problems are transformed into a boundary-only integral equation which can be solved numerically using a standard boundary element method (BEM). Some examples are solved to show the validity of the analysis and examine the accuracy of the numerical method.Design/methodology/approach The 2D problems which are governed by unsteady anisotropic modified-Helmholtz equation of time–space dependent coefficients are solved using a combined BEM and Laplace transform. The time–space dependent coefficient equation is reduced to a time-dependent coefficient equation using an analytical transformation. Then, the time-dependent coefficient equation is Laplace transformed to get a constant coefficient equation, which can be written as a boundary-only integral equation. By utilizing a BEM, this integral equation is solved to find numerical solutions to the problems in the frame of the Laplace transform. These solutions are then inversely transformed numerically to obtain solutions in the original time–space frame.FindingsThe main finding of this research is the derivation of a boundary-only integral equation for the solutions of initial-boundary value problems governed by a modified-Helmholtz equation of time–space dependent coefficients for anisotropic functionally graded materials with time-dependent properties.Originality/valueThe originality of the research lies on the time dependency of properties of the functionally graded material under consideration.

In the present study, an alternative strategy for elasto-dynamic crack problems using boundary element method is discussed. The Laplace transformation is applied to time variation in the formulation. Since the numerical solutions are obtained in the Laplace-transformed domain, the numerical-inverse Laplace transformation is adopted to obtain time histories of the solutions. In the present method, the distributions of the displacement and traction in the vicinity of the crack tip are expressed as the superposition of singular terms and regular ones. The singular terms are the analytical solutions including stress intensity factors of Modes I and II, while the regular terms are approximated by the discrete polynomial functions in general BEM formulations. Additionally, the ligament side is discretized by singular-type crack elements in order to increase the accuracy of the traction near the crack tip. It is shown that the dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs) of Modes I and II are determined directly without supplementary procedures such as extrapolation or J-integral scheme. The validity of the present method is confirmed through the analysis of mixed mode dynamic problems of crack.

A triple reciprocity method in Laplace transform boundary element method for three-dimensional transient heat conduction problems

A Monte Carlo solution method for linear elasticity

By combining the boundary-element technique introduced by Cinco-Ley with the Laplace transform, a powerful technique has been developed for modelling transient flow in complex reservoir geometries. Applied to a finite-conductivity fracture in an infinite (if desired, dual-porosity) reservoir, the technique offers both a robust and fast algorithm for calculating the transient pressure response. Furthermore, it describes flow impairment in the vicinity of the fracture and fracture-wall damage in terms of a fracture-wall skin factor. As shown by the model, the presence of this phenomenon is clearly indicated by a. distinct hump on the pressure-derivative plot (t∂p∂t versus t). An application of the technique to actual field data demonstrates the importance of the fracture-wall skin factor in well-test analysis. The speed of the algorithm enables automatic type-curve matching by least-squares methods. Since the solution is given in Laplace space, it is possible to handle multi-layer fractured reservoirs at very low cost. Furthermore, convolution to obtain variable-rate solutions can be performed in Laplace space. The same technique has also been applied to a two-fracture system and to a horizontal well intersecting a zone of natural fractures.

A new boundary element method (BEM) for analyzing the potential field including thin plates is developed. It is known that the inaccurate solutions are encountered with the standard BEM for this potential problem. In case each source point on foreside and backside of the thin plate is close, the boundary integral equations for these sources nearly depend each other. This is because the fundamental solution distributions for each source are almost the same. In order to overcome this problem, the special weighting function whose form is not symmetric instead of the standard fundamental solution in the BEM is proposed. The weighting function for 2 D potential problem is derived. A few example problems are solved with this method to demonstrate its applicability and usefulness.

Many applications require computation of acoustic fields in systems consisting of a large number of scatterers, which may have complex shape. Despite the boundary element method being a well-known technique for solution of the boundary value problems for the Helmholtz equation, its capabilities are usually limited by the memory and speed of computers, and conventional methods can be applicable to relatively small (up to order of 10<th>000 boundary elements) problems. We developed and implemented an efficient computational technique, based on an iterative solver employing generalized minimal residual method in combination with matrix-vector multiplication speeded up with the fast multipole method. We demonstrate that this technique has O(N) memory and computational complexity and enables solution of problems with thousands of scatterers (millions of boundary elements) on a desktop PC. The test problems solved are of moderate frequency (up to kD≤150, where k is the wavenumber and D is the size of the computational domain). Solution of large scale scattering problems was tested by comparison with the FMM-based T-matrix method applicable for simple shape objects reported earlier [Gumerov and Duraiswami, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 117(4), 1744–1761 (2005)], visualization, and physical interpretation of the results.