New variable transformations for evaluating nearly singular integrals in 2D boundary element method

This work presents a further development of the distance transformation technique for accurate evaluation of the nearly singular integrals arising in the 2D boundary element method (BEM). The traditional technique separates the nearly hypersingular integral into two parts: a near strong singular part and a nearly hypersingular part. The near strong singular part with the one-ordered distance transformation is evaluated by the standard Gaussian quadrature and the nearly hypersingular part still needs to be transformed into an analytical form. In this paper, the distance transformation is performed by four steps in case the source point coincides with the projection point or five steps otherwise. For each step, new transformation is proposed based on the approximate distance function, so that all steps can finally be unified into a uniform formation. With the new formulation, the nearly hypersingular integral can be dealt with directly and the near singularity separation and the cumbersome analytical deductions related to a specific fundamental solution are avoided. Numerical examples and comparisons with the existing methods on straight line elements and curved elements demonstrate that our method is accurate and effective.     

Nearly singular approximations of CPV integrals with end- and corner-singularities for the numerical solution of hypersingular boundary integral equations

A local numerical approach to cope with the singular and hypersingular boundary integral equations (BIEs) in non-regularized forms is presented in the paper for 2D elastostatics. The approach is based on the fact that the singular boundary integrals can be represented approximately by the mean values of two nearly singular boundary integrals and on the techniques of distance transformations developed primarily in previous work of the authors. The nearly singular approximations in the present work, including the normal and the tangential distance transformations, are designed for the numerical evaluation of boundary integrals with end-singularities at junctures between two elements, especially at corner points where sufficient continuity requirements are met. The approach is very general, which makes it possible to solve the hypersingular BIE numerically in a non-regularized form by using conforming C⁰ quadratic boundary elements and standard Gaussian quadratures without paying special attention to the corner treatment.With the proposed approach, an infinite tension plate with an elliptical hole and a pressurized thick cylinder were analyzed by using both the formulations of conventional displacement and traction boundary element methods, showing encouragingly the efficiency and the reliability of the proposed approach. The behaviors of boundary integrals with end- and corner-singular kernels were observed and compared by the additional numerical tests. It is considered that the weakly singularities remain but should have been cancelled with each other if used in pairs by the corresponding terms in the neighboring elements, where the corner information is included naturally in the approximations.     

Distance transformation for the numerical evaluation of nearly singular integrals on triangular elements

The accurate numerical evaluation of nearly singular boundary integrals is a major concerned issue in the implementation of the boundary element method (BEM). In this paper, the previous distance transformation method is extended into triangular elements both in polar and Cartesian coordinate systems. A new simple and efficient method using an approximate nearly singular point is proposed to deal with the case when the nearly singular point is located outside the element. In general, the results obtained using the polar coordinate system are superior to that in the Cartesian coordinate system when the nearly singular point is located inside the element. Besides, the accuracy of the results is influenced by the locations of the nearly singular point due to the special topology of triangular elements. However, when the nearly singular point is located outside the element, both the polar and Cartesian coordinate systems can get acceptable results.     

Analytic formulations for calculating nearly singular integrals in two-dimensional BEM

There exist the nearly singular integrals in the boundary integral equations when a source point is close to an integration element but not on the element, such as the field problems with thin domains. In this paper, the analytic formulations are achieved to calculate the nearly weakly singular, strongly singular and hyper-singular integrals on the straight elements for the two-dimensional (2D) boundary element methods (BEM). The algorithm is performed after the BIE are discretized by a set of boundary elements. The singular factor, which is expressed by the minimum relative distance from the source point to the closer element, is separated from the nearly singular integrands by the use of integration by parts. Thus, it results in exact integrations of the nearly singular integrals for the straight elements, instead of the numerical integration. The analytic algorithm is also used to calculate nearly singular integrals on the curved element by subdividing it into several linear or sub-parametric elements only when the nearly singular integrals need to be determined. The approach can achieve high accuracy in cases of the curved elements without increasing other computational efforts. As an application, the technique is employed to analyze the 2D elasticity problems, including the thin-walled structures. Some numerical results demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the algorithm.     

The iterated sinh transformation

A sinh transformation has recently been proposed to improve the numerical accuracy of evaluating nearly singular integrals using Gauss–Legendre quadrature. It was shown that the transformation could improve the accuracy of evaluating such integrals, which arise in the boundary element method, by several orders of magnitude. Here, this transformation is extended in an iterative fashion to allow the accurate evaluation of similar types of integrals that have more spiked integrands. Results show that one iteration of this sinh transformation is preferred for nearly weakly singular integrals, whereas two iterations lead to several orders of magnitude improvement in the evaluation of nearly strongly singular integrals. The same observation applies when considering integrals of derivatives of the two‐dimensional boundary element kernel. However, for these integrals, more iterations are required as the distance from the source point to the boundary element decreases. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A non-linear transformation applied to boundary layer effect and thin-body effect in BEM for 2D potential problems

The accurate numerical evaluation of nearly singular integrals plays an important role in many engineering applications. In general, these include evaluating the solution near the boundary or treating problems with thin domains, which are respectively named the boundary layer effect and the thin-body effect in the boundary element method. Although many methods of evaluating nearly singular integrals have been developed in recent years with varying degrees of success, questions still remain. In this article, a general non-linear transformation for evaluating nearly singular integrals over curved two-dimensional (2D) boundary elements is employed and applied to treat boundary layer effect and thin-body effect occurring in 2D potential problems. The introduced transformation can remove or damp out the rapid variations of nearly singular kernels and extremely high accuracy of numerical results can be achieved without increasing other computational efforts. Extensive numerical experiments indicate that the proposed transformation will be more efficient, in terms of the necessary integration points and central processing unit-time, compared to previous transformation methods, especially for dealing with thin-body problems.     

A direct traction BIE approach for three-dimensional crack problems

A boundary element (BE) approach based on the traction boundary integral equation for the general solution of three-dimensional (3D) crack problems is presented. The hypersingular and strongly singular integrals appearing in the formulation are analytically transformed to yield line and surface integrals which are at most weakly singular. Regularization and analytical transformation of the boundary integrals is done prior to any boundary discretization. The integration process does not require of any change of coordinates and the resulting integrals can be numerically evaluated in a simple and efficient way. In order to show the generality, simplicity and robustness of the proposed approach, different flat and curved crack problems in infinite and finite domains are analyzed. A simple BE discretization strategy is adopted. The results obtained using rather course meshes are very accurate. The emphasis of this paper is on the effective application of the proposed BE approach and it is pretended to contribute to the transformation of hypersingular boundary element formulation in something as clear, general and easy to handle as the classical formulation but much better suited for fracture mechanics problems.     

The distance sinh transformation for the numerical evaluation of nearly singular integrals over curved surface elements

This paper presents a new transformation termed as the distance sinh transformation for the numerical evaluation of nearly singular integrals arising in 3D BEM. The new transformation is an improvement of the previous sinh transformation. The original sinh transformation is only limited to planar elements. Moreover, when the nearly singular point is located outside the element, results obtained by the original sinh transformation combined with conventional subdivision method are not quite accurate. In the presented work, the sinh transformation combined with the distance function is proposed to overcome the drawbacks of the original sinh transformation. With the improved transformation, nearly singular integrals on the curved surface elements can be accurately calculated. Furthermore, an alternative subdivision method is proposed using an approximate nearly singular point, which is quite simple for programming and accurate results can be obtained. Numerical examples for both curved triangular and quadrangular elements are given to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the presented method.     

A sinh transformation for evaluating nearly singular boundary element integrals

An implementation of the boundary element method requires the accurate evaluation of many integrals. When the source point is far from the boundary element under consideration, a straightforward application of Gaussian quadrature suffices to evaluate such integrals. When the source point is on the element, the integrand becomes singular and accurate evaluation can be obtained using the same Gaussian points transformed under a polynomial transformation which has zero Jacobian at the singular point. A class of integrals which lies between these two extremes is that of ‘nearly singular’ integrals. Here, the source point is close to, but not on, the element and the integrand remains finite at all points. However, instead of remaining flat, the integrand develops a sharp peak as the source point moves closer to the element, thus rendering accurate evaluation of the integral difficult. This paper presents a transformation, based on the sinh function, which automatically takes into account the position of the projection of the source point onto the element, which we call the ‘nearly singular point’, and the distance from the source point to the element. The transformation again clusters the points towards the nearly singular point, but does not have a zero Jacobian. Implementation of the transformation is straightforward and could easily be included in existing boundary element method software. It is shown that, for the two‐dimensional boundary element method, several orders of magnitude improvement in relative error can be obtained using this transformation compared to a conventional implementation of Gaussian quadrature. Asymptotic estimates for the truncation errors are also quoted. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hypersingular quarter-point boundary elements for crack problems

The present paper deals with the study and effective implementation for Stress Intensity Factor computation of a mixed boundary element approach based on the standard displacement integral equation and the hypersingular traction integral equation. Expressions for the evaluation of the hypersingular integrals along general curved quadratic line elements are presented. The integration is carried out by transformation of the hypersingular integrals into regular integrals, which are evaluated by standard quadratures, and simple singular integrals, which are integrated analytically. The generality of the method allows for the modelling of curved cracks and the use of straight line quarter-point elements. The Stress Intensity Factors can be computed very accurately from the Crack Opening Displacement at collocation points extremely close to the crack tip. Several examples with different crack geometries are analyzed. The computed results show that the proposed approach for Stress Intensity Factors evaluation is simple, produces very accurate solutions and has little dependence on the size of the elements near the crack tip.