The radial integration method for evaluation of domain integrals with boundary-only discretization

In this paper, a simple and robust method, called the radial integration method, is presented for transforming domain integrals into equivalent boundary integrals. Any two- or three-dimensional domain integral can be evaluated in a unified way without the need to discretize the domain into internal cells. Domain integrals consisting of known functions can be directly and accurately transformed to the boundary, while for domain integrals including unknown variables, the transformation is accomplished by approximating these variables using radial basis functions. In the proposed method, weak singularities involved in the domain integrals are also explicitly transformed to the boundary integrals, so no singularities exist at internal points. Some analytical and numerical examples are presented to verify the validity of this method.     

Transformation of domain integrals to boundary integrals in BEM analysis of shear deformable plate bending problems

In this paper two techniques, dual reciprocity method (DRM) and direct integral method (DIM), are developed to transform domain integrals to boundary integrals for shear deformable plate bending formulation. The force term is approximated by a set of radial basis functions. To transform domain integrals to boundary integrals using the dual reciprocity method, particular solutions are employed for three radial basis functions. Direct integral method is also introduced in this paper to evaluate domain integrals. Three examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the two methods. The numerical results obtained by using different particular solutions are compared with exact solutions. Received 27 January 1999     

Plane stress and plate bending coupling in BEM analysis of shallow shells

In this paper the shear deformable shallow shells are analysed by boundary element method. New boundary integral equations are derived utilizing the Betti's reciprocity principle and coupling boundary element formulation of shear deformable plate and two‐dimensional plane stress elasticity. Two techniques, direct integral method (DIM) and dual reciprocity method (DRM), are developed to transform domain integrals to boundary integrals. The force term is approximted by a set of radial basis functions. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the two methods. The accuracy of results obtained by using boundary element method are compared with exact solutions and the finite element method. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison of domain integral evaluation techniques for boundary element methods

In many cases, boundary integral equations contain a domain integral. This can be evaluated by discretization of the domain into domain elements. Historically, this was seen as going against the spirit of boundary element methods, and several methods were developed to avoid this discretization, notably dual and multiple reciprocity methods and particular solution methods. These involved the representation of the interior function with a set of basis functions, generally of the radial type. In this study, meshless methods (dual reciprocity and particular solution) are compared to the direct domain integration methods. The domain integrals are evaluated using traditional methods and also with multipole acceleration. It is found that the direct integration always results in better accuracy, as well as smaller computation times. In addition, the multipole method further improves on the computation times, in particular where multiple evaluations of the integral are required, as when iterative solvers are used. The additional error produced by the multipole acceleration is negligible. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary element analysis of nonlinear transient heat conduction problems involving non-homogenous and nonlinear heat sources using time-dependent fundamental solutions

A new method for the boundary element analysis of unsteady heat conduction problems involving non-homogenous and/or temperature dependent heat sources by the time-dependent fundamental solution is presented. Nonlinear terms are converted to a fictitious heat source and implemented in the present formulation. The domain integrals are efficiently treated by the recently introduced Cartesian transformation method. Similar to the dual reciprocity method, some internal grid points are considered for the treatment of the domain integrals. In the present method, unlike the dual reciprocity method, there is no need to find particular solution for the shape functions in the interpolation computations and the form of the shape functions can be arbitrary and sufficiently complicated. In the present method, at each time step the temperature at boundary nodes and some internal grid points is computed and used as pseudo-initial values for the next time step. Most of the generated matrices are constant at all time steps and computations can be carried out fast. An example with different forms of heat sources is presented to show the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.     

Buckling analysis of shear deformable plates by boundary element method

In this paper, the derivation and numerical implementation of boundary integral equations for the buckling analysis of shear deformable plates are presented. Plate buckling equations are derived as a standard eigenvalue problem. The formulation is formed by coupling boundary element formulations of shear deformable plate and two dimensional plane stress elasticity. The eigenvalue problem of plate buckling yields the critical load factor and buckling modes. The domain integrals which appear in this formulation are treated in two different ways: initially the integrals are evaluated using constant cells, and next, they are transformed into equivalent boundary integrals using the dual reciprocity method (DRM). Several examples with different geometry, loading and boundary conditions are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the formulation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dual reciprocity boundary element method using compactly supported radial basis functions for 3D linear elasticity with body forces

A new computational model by integrating the boundary element method and the compactly supported radial basis functions (CSRBF) is developed for three-dimensional (3D) linear elasticity with the presence of body forces. The corresponding displacement and stress particular solution kernels across the supported radius in the CSRBF are obtained for inhomogeneous term interpolation. Subsequently, the classical dual reciprocity boundary element method, in which the domain integrals due to the presence of body forces are transferred into equivalent boundary integrals, is formulated by introducing locally supported displacement and stress particular solution kernels for solving the inhomogeneous 3D linear elastic system. Finally, several examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the present method.     

A boundary element method without internal cells for solving viscous flow problems

In this paper, a new boundary element method without internal cells is presented for solving viscous flow problems, based on the radial integration method (RIM) which can transform any domain integrals into boundary integrals. Due to the presence of body forces, pressure term and the non-linearity of the convective terms in Navier–Stokes equations, some domain integrals appear in the derived velocity and pressure boundary-domain integral equations. The body forces induced domain integrals are directly transformed into equivalent boundary integrals using RIM. For other domain integrals including unknown quantities (velocity product and pressure), the transformation to the boundary is accomplished by approximating the unknown quantities with the compactly supported fourth-order spline radial basis functions combined with polynomials in global coordinates. Two numerical examples are given to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Radial integration boundary integral and integro-differential equation methods for two-dimensional heat conduction problems with variable coefficients

This paper presents new formulations of the radial integration boundary integral equation (RIBIE) and the radial integration boundary integro-differential equation (RIBIDE) methods for the numerical solution of two-dimensional heat conduction problems with variable coefficients. The methods use a specially constructed parametrix (Levi function) to reduce the boundary-value problem (BVP) to a boundary-domain integral equation (BDIE) or boundary-domain integro-differential equation (BDIDE). The radial integration method is then employed to convert the domain integrals arising in both BDIE and BDIDE methods into equivalent boundary integrals. The resulting formulations lead to pure boundary integral and integro-differential equations with no domain integrals. Numerical examples are presented for several simple problems, for which exact solutions are available, to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods.     

Modal analysis of plates using the dual reciprocity boundary element method

This paper presents a new method for determining the natural frequencies and mode shapes for the free vibration of thin elastic plates using the boundary element and dual reciprocity methods. The solution to the plate's equation of motion is assumed to be of separable form. The problem is further simplified by using the fundamental solution of an infinite plate in the reciprocity theorem. Except for the inertia term, all domain integrals are transformed into boundary integrals using the reciprocity theorem. However, the inertia domain integral is evaluated in terms of the boundary nodes by using the dual reciprocity method. In this method, a set of interior points is selected and the deflection at these points is assumed to be a series of approximating functions. The reciprocity theorem is applied to reduce the domain integrals to a boundary integral. To evaluate the boundary integrals, the displacements and rotations are assumed to vary linearly along the boundary. The boundary integrals are discretized and evaluated numerically. The resulting matrix equations are significantly smaller than the finite element formulation for an equivalent problem. Mode shapes for the free vibration of circular and rectangular plates are obtained and compared with analytical and finite element results.     

Radial integration BEM for transient heat conduction problems

In this paper, a new boundary element analysis approach is presented for solving transient heat conduction problems based on the radial integration method. The normalized temperature is introduced to formulate integral equations, which makes the representation very simple and having no temperature gradients involved. The Green's function for the Laplace equation is adopted in deriving basic integral equations for time-dependent problems with varying heat conductivities and, as a result, domain integrals are involved in the derived integral equations. The radial integration method is employed to convert the domain integrals into equivalent boundary integrals. Based on the central finite difference technique, an implicit time marching solution scheme is developed for solving the time-dependent system of equations. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the correctness of the presented approach.     

A nonlinear complementarity approach for elastoplastic problems by BEM without internal cells

A nonlinear complementarity approach is presented to solve elastoplastic problems by the boundary element method, in which the equations are formulated by stress equations and complementarity function obtained from the plasticity constitutive law. The domain integrals involved are transformed into boundary integrals by radial integration method, using compactly supported radial basis functions. Two numerical examples demonstrate the algorithm’s applicability and effectiveness.     

Efficient evaluation of weakly/strongly singular domain integrals in the BEM using a singular nodal integration method

In many analyses of engineering problems based on boundary element methods, a large number of regular and/or singular domain integrals must be accurately evaluated over a single domain. Evaluation of such domain integrals is very time-consuming and is frequently the main source of errors and loss of accuracy in the solutions. Previous efforts have been constantly made in order to facilitate or overcome such shortcomings. In this article, we propose novel and efficient approaches in the framework of Cartesian transformation method (CTM) and the radial integration method (RIM) that can be used for fast evaluation of numerous weakly/strongly singular two-dimensional domain integrals over a single domain. The domain integrals essentially are expressed in terms of some coefficient matrices and vectors, most of which are independent of the integrand of the domain integrals and are dependent only on the geometry. Several examples for the evaluation of weakly/strongly singular domain integrals and two examples for the flow field analysis in micro-channels are presented and the accuracy and convergence of the proposed approaches are investigated.     

Dual reciprocity hybrid boundary node method for acoustic eigenvalue problems

The hybrid boundary node method (HBNM) is a truly meshless method, and elements are not required for either interpolation or integration. The method, however, can only be used for solving homogeneous problems. For the inhomogeneous problem, the domain integration is inevitable. This paper applied the dual reciprocity hybrid boundary node method (DRHBNM), which is composed by the HBNM and the dual reciprocity method (DRM) for solving acoustic eigenvalue problems. In this method, the solution is composed of two parts, i.e. the complementary solution and the particular solution. The complementary solution is solved by HBNM and the particular one is obtained by DRM. The modified variational formulation is applied to form the discrete equations of HBNM. The moving least squares (MLS) is employed to approximate the boundary variables, while the domain variables are interpolated by the fundamental solutions. The domain integration is interpolated by radial basis function (RBF). The Q–R algorithm and Householder algorithm are applied for solving the eigenvalues of the transformed matrix. The parameters that influence the performance of DRHBNM are studied through numerical examples. Numerical results show that high convergence rates and high accuracy are achievable.     

Dual reciprocity BEM without matrix inversion for transient heat conduction

Presence of domain integrals in the formulation of the boundary element method dramatically decreases the efficiency of this technique. Dual reciprocity boundary element method (DRBEM) is one of the most popular methods to convert domain integrals into a series of boundary integrals. This is done at the expense of generating some additional matrices and inverting one of them. The latter feature makes the DRBEM inefficient for large-scale problems. This paper describes simple means of avoiding matrix inversion for transient heat transfer problems with arbitrary set of boundary conditions. The technique is also directly applicable to other phenomena (acoustic wave propagation, elastodynamics). For the boundary conditions of Neumann and Robin type, the proposed technique produces exactly the same results as the standard approach. In the presence of Dirichlet conditions, a lower bound on the time step has been detected in the backward difference time stepping procedure. The approach has been tested on some transient heat conduction benchmark problems and accurate results have been obtained.     

无域积分的弹塑性边界元法的非线性互补方法

该文引入非线性互补方法来求解边界元法的弹塑性问题,其中方程组由内部点应力方程和反映塑性本构定律的互补函数形成。涉及的域积分采用径向积分法转化为边界积分。通过受内压的厚壁圆筒的应力、位移和荷载-位移情况表明了该算法的精度。     

Free vibration analysis of anisotropic material structures using the boundary element method

This paper presents a formulation for the analysis of free vibration in anisotropic structures using the boundary element method. The fundamental solution for elastostatic is used and the inertial terms are treated as body forces providing domain integrals. The dual reciprocity boundary element method is used to reduce domain integrals to boundary integrals. Mode shapes and natural frequencies for free vibration of orthotropic structures are obtained and compared with finite element results showing good agreement.     

A local Heaviside weighted meshless method for two-dimensional solids using radial basis functions

 A meshless method is developed for the stress analysis of two-dimensional solids, based on a local weighted residual method with the Heaviside step function as the weighting function over a local subdomain. Trial functions are constructed using radial basis functions (RBF). The present method is a truly meshless method based only on a number of randomly located nodes. No domain integration is needed, no element matrix assembly is required and no special treatment is needed to impose the essential boundary conditions. Effects of the sizes of local subdomain and interpolation domain on the performance of the present method are investigated. The behaviour of shape parameters of multiquadrics (MQ) has been systematically studied. Example problems in elastostatics are presented and compared with closed-form solutions and show that the proposed method is highly accurate and possesses no numerical difficulties. Received: 10 November 2002 / Accepted: 5 March 2003     

A meshless solution of two-dimensional unsteady flow

The boundary element method (BEM) is a very useful numerical method for groundwater flow models. Particularly, this method was used to solve problems in homogeneous domains. However, it presents even greater difficulties than the other numerical methods when coping with non-homogeneities which are so characteristic in the groundwater hydraulics. Recently, meshless method which is based on a local boundary integral approach is introduced. It uses distributed nodal points, covering the domain. These points can be randomly spread over the domain. Every node is surrounded by a simple surface centered at the collocation point and the boundary integral equation is written on this local boundary. The unknown variables, in the local sub-domains, are approximated by some of the interpolation method. In this paper the combination of radial basis functions and the dual reciprocity method is used to solve the time-dependent groundwater flow.     

Using analytical expressions in radial integration BEM for variable coefficient heat conduction problems

In this paper, a new approach using analytical expressions in the radial integration boundary element method (RIBEM) is presented for solving variable coefficient heat conduction problems. This approach can improve the computational efficiency considerably and can overcome the time-consuming deficiency of RIBEM in computing involved radial integrals. The fourth-order spline RBF is employed to approximate unknowns appearing in domain integrals arising from the varying heat conductivity. The radial integration method is utilized to convert domain integrals to the boundary resulting in a pure boundary discretization algorithm. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the efficiency of the presented approach.