Analytical integral algorithm in the BEM for orthotropic potential problems of thin bodies

There exist nearly singular integrals for boundary layer effect problem and thin body effect problem in the boundary element method (BEM). A new completely analytical integral algorithm is proposed and applied to evaluate the nearly singular integrals in the BEM for two-dimensional orthotropic potential problems of thin bodies. The completely analytical integral formulas are derived with integration by parts for the linear boundary interpolation. The present algorithm applies these analytical formulas to deal with the nearly singular integrals. The unknown potentials and fluxes at boundary nodes are firstly calculated accurately and then the physical quantities at the interior points are computed. Two benchmark numerical examples on heat conduction demonstrate that the present algorithm can handle thin structures with the thickness-to-length ratio down to 1.E−08. This indicates that the BEM is especially accurate and efficient for numerical analysis of thin body problems.     

Complex variables boundary element method for elasticity problems with constant body force

The direct formulation of the complex variables boundary element method is generalized to allow for solving problems with constant body forces. The hypersingular integral equation for two-dimensional piecewise homogeneous medium is presented and the numerical solution is described. The technique can be used to solve a wide variety of problems in engineering. Several examples are presented to verify the approach and to demonstrate its key features. The results of calculations performed with the proposed approach are compared with available analytical and numerical benchmark solutions.     

Numerical solutions of singular integral equations having Cauchy-type singular kernel by means of expansion method

This paper is concerned with numerical solutions of singular integral equations with Cauchy-type singular kernel. It is well-known that this type of singular integral equations appears in the analysis of crack problems using the continuously distributed dislocation method. In addition, it also appears in the analysis of notch problems using the body force method. In the present analysis, the unknown function of densities of dislocations and body forces are approximated by the product of the fundamental density functions and polynomials. The accuracy of stress intensity factors and stress concentration factors obtained by the present method is verified through the comparison with the exact solution and the reliable numerical solution obtained by other researchers. The present method is found to give good convergency of the numerical results for notch problem as well as internal and edge crack problems.     

Stress intensity factors of an elliptical crack or a semi-elliptical crack subject to tension

This paper is concerned with the analysis of stress intensity factors of a semi-infinite body with an elliptical or a semi-elliptical crack subject to tension. Analysis is based on the body force method [1] which has been applied to the various plane stress problems. In this paper the method is extended to three-dimensional problems. The numerical calculations are performed for various shapes and configurations of ellipses and the results are in agreement with the two-dimensional cases by M. Isida asb/a→0. The stress intensity factor of a semi-elliptical crack in a plate of finite width is also discussed.     

A stable energy‐conserving approach for frictional contact problems based on quadrature formulas

A common approach for the numerical simulation of non‐linear multi‐body contact problems is the use of Lagrange multipliers to model the contact conditions. The stability of standard algorithms is improved by introducing a modified mass matrix which assigns no mass to the potential contact nodes. By this, the spurious algorithmic oscillations in the multiplier do not occur any more, which facilitates the application of the primal–dual active set strategy to dynamical contact problems. The new mass matrix is calculated via a modified quadrature formula that needs no extra computational cost. In addition the conservation properties of the underlying algorithm are transferred to the modified mass version. Different numerical examples for frictional two‐body contact problems illustrate the improvement in the results for the contact stresses. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A pure boundary element method approach for solving hypersingular boundary integral equations

This paper is concerned with discretization and numerical solution of a regularized version of the hypersingular boundary integral equation (HBIE) for the two-dimensional Laplace equation. This HBIE contains the primary unknown, as well as its gradient, on the boundary of a body. Traditionally, this equation has been solved by combining the boundary element method (BEM) together with tangential differentiation of the interpolated primary variable on the boundary. The present paper avoids this tangential differentiation. Instead, a “pure” BEM method is proposed for solving this class of problems. Dirichlet, Neumann and mixed problems are addressed in this paper, and some numerical examples are included in it.     

柔性梁大挠度动力响应分析的多体系统方法

研究柔性梁大挠度动力响应问题，应用多体系统方法建立起大变形振动控制方程，结合Newmark直接积分法和Newton—Raphson迭代法给出了求解该非线性代数一微分方程组的数值方法。该方法一方面在随体坐标系中把子梁作为小变形处理使得变形的描述大为简化，另一方面通过随体坐标系的运动自然计及了子梁的刚体运动。数值算例证明了该方法的正确性和有效性。     

Application of BEM to generalized plane problems for anisotropic elastic materials in presence of contact

It is in many cases very instructive and useful to have the possibility of treating three-dimensional problems by means of two-dimensional models. It always implies a reduction in computing cost which is particularly significant in presence of non-linearities, derived for instance from the presence of contact between the solids involved in the problem. The term generalized plane problem is adopted for a three-dimensional problem in a homogeneous linear elastic cylindrical body where strains and stresses are the same in all transversal sections. This concept covers many practical cases (for instance in the field of composites), a particular situation called generalized plane strain (strains, stresses and displacements are the same in all transversal sections) being the most frequently analyzed. In this paper, a new formulation is developed in a systematic way to solve generalized plane problems for anisotropic materials, with possible friction contact zones, as two-dimensional problems. The numerical solution of these problems is formulated by means of the boundary element method. An explicit expression of a new particular solution of the problem associated to constant body forces is introduced and applied to avoid domain integrations. Some numerical results are presented to show the performance and advantages of the formulation developed.     

Application of the simultaneous iteration method to undamped vibration problems

The simultaneous iteration method of obtaining eigenvalues and eigenvectors is employed for the solution of undamped vibration problems. This method is of significance when a few of the dominant eigenvalues and eigenvectors are required from a large matrix, and hence is particularly suitable for vibration problems involving a large number of degrees of freedom. It is shown that advantage may be taken of both the symmetry and the band form of the mass and stiffness matrices, thus making it feasible to process on a computer larger order vibration problems than can be processed using transformation methods. A method of allowing for body freedom is given and some numerical tests are discussed.     

三维热弹性力学问题的混合边界元法

本本文给出了三维无限大域内点热源作用下的位移、应力场基本解。采用基于虚拟热源法的间接边界元法和直接边界元法的混合边界元法求解三维有限域热弹性力学问题,有效地避免了热弹性力学问题中域内积分的处理。数值计算表明混合边界元法求热弹性力学问题具有简单方便、精度较高的优点。     

An analysis of solidification problems by the boundary element method

The problem of interest in this paper is the calculation of the motion of the solid–liquid interface and the time-dependent temperature field during solidification of a pure metal. An iterative implicit algorithm has been developed for this purpose using the boundary element method (BEM) with time-dependent Green's functions and convolution integrals. The BEM approach requires discretization of only the surface of the solidifying body. Thus, the numerical method closely follows the physics of the problems and is intuitively very appealing. The formulation and the numerical scheme presented here are general and can be applied to a broad range of moving boundary problems. Emphasis is given to two-dimensional problems. Comparison with existing semi-analytical solutions and other numerical solutions from the literature reveals that the method is fast, accurate and without major time step limitations.     

A meshless method for generalized linear or nonlinear Poisson-type problems

This paper presents a meshless method, based on coupling virtual boundary collocation method (VBCM) with the radial basis functions (RBF) and the analog equation method (AEM), to analyze generalized linear or nonlinear Poisson-type problems. In this method, the AEM is used to construct equivalent equations to the original differential equation so that a simpler fundamental solution of the Laplacian operator, instead of other complicated ones which are needed in conventional BEM, can be employed. While global RBF is used to approximate fictitious body force which appears when the analog equation method is introduced, and VBCM are utilized to solve homogeneous solution based on the superposition principle. As a result, a new meshless method is developed for solving nonlinear Poisson-type problems. Finally, some numerical experiments are implemented to verify the efficiency of the proposed method and numerical results are in good agreement with the analytical ones. It appears that the proposed meshless method is very effective for nonlinear Poisson-type problems.     

固体力学问题数值解的一种验证方法

给出了固体力学几何非线性动态问题数值解的一种精度验证方法.通过假定初始构形和现时构形之间的映射关系,利用固体力学的控制方程即可求得产生这种构形的体积力,则假定构形和所得到的体积力就构成了问题的解析解.在这些解析解的基础上,提出了一种检验数值方法精度的标准试验,可用于二维和三维问题、隐式算法和显式算法、小变形和大变形分析、弹性材料和超弹性材料.在线性位移场的情况下本文方法是和传统的分片检验(patch test)一致的.文中给出了无网格迦辽金法(EFGM)精度检验的几个算例.     

Scalable total BETI based solver for 3D multibody frictionless contact problems in mechanical engineering

A total BETI (TBETI) based domain decomposition algorithm with the preconditioning by a natural coarse grid of the rigid body motions is adapted for the solution of multibody frictionless contact problems of linear elastostatics and proved to be scalable, i.e., the cost of the solution is asymptotically proportional to the number of variables. The analysis admits floating bodies. The proofs combine the original results by Langer and Steinbach on the scalability of BETI for linear problems and our development of optimal quadratic programming algorithms for bound and equality constrained problems. The theoretical results are verified by numerical experiments. The power of the method is demonstrated on the analysis of ball bearings.     

Computational simulation of crack problems by means of the contour element method

The article discusses a contour element method applied to numerical simulations of crack problems in elastic structures. Because the boundary integral equation degenerates for a body with two crack-surfaces occupying the same location, one of the forms of the displacement discontinuity method is implemented. According to the implemented method, resultant forces and dislocation densities, which are placed at mid-nodes of contour segments on one of the crack surfaces, are characterized by the indirect boundary integral equation. Contrarily to internal crack problems, for edge crack problems an edge-discontinuous element is used at the intersection between a crack and an edge to avoid a common node at the intersection. New numerical formulations that are built up on analytical integration are implemented. Therefore, all regular and singular integrals are evaluated only analytically. Tractions and resultant forces at a mid-node of any contour segment are regularized by a nonlocal characterization function. Hence, values of their components are obtained from the modified form of Somigliana’s identity that embraces nonlocal elements and standard elements of kernel matrices used in the boundary element analysis.     

Interaction effect of stress intensity factors for any number of collinear interface cracks

In this study, the stress intensity factors for any number of interface cracks are calculated for various spacings, elastic constants and number of cracks and the interaction effect of interface cracks is discussed. The problem is formulated as a system of singular integral equations on the basis of the body force method. In the numerical analysis, the unknown functions of the body force densities which satisfy the boundary conditions are expressed by the products of fundamental density functions and power series. Here, the fundamental density functions are chosen to express the stress field due to a single interface crack exactly. The accuracy of the present analysis is verified by comparing the present results with the results obtained by other researchers and examining the compliance with boundary conditions. The calculation shows that the present method gives rapidly converging numerical results for those problems as well as ordinary crack problems in homogeneous materials. The interaction effect of interface crack appears in a similar way to ordinary collinear cracks having the same geometrical condition and the maximum stress intensity factor is shown to be linearly related to the reciprocal of number of interface cracks. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A numerical Green's function for multiple cracks in anisotropic bodies

The numerical construction of a Green's function for multiple interacting planar cracks in an anisotropic elastic space is considered. The numerical Green's function can be used to obtain a special boundary-integral method for an important class of two-dimensional elastostatic problems involving planar cracks in an anisotropic body.     

Rigorous improvement of semi-analytical design sensitivities by exact differentiation of rigid body motions

In the recent past inaccuracy problems have been reported that arise when computing shape design sensitivities by the semi-analytical method. Since both the analytical and the global finite-difference method do not show these severe inaccuracies, it has been concluded that these errors are due to the numerical differentiation of the finite-element stiffness matrices, which is inherent in the semi-analytical method. Moreover, it has also been observed that these inaccuracies become especially dominant when relatively large rigid body motions can be identified for individual elements. So far, improvements to the semi-analytical method are focusing on the numerical differentiation of the finite-element stiffness matrices. It is shown in the present paper that the contribution to the design sensitivities corresponding to the rigid body motions can be evaluated by exact differentiation of the rigid body modes. This approach requires only minor programming effort and the additional computing time is very small. As shown by numerical examples, the proposed method eliminates the problem of abnormal errors occurring in the semi-analytical method. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of curvature at the crack tip on the stress intensity factor for curved cracks

In this paper, the numerical solution of the hypersingular integral equation using the body force method in curved crack problems is presented. In the body force method, the stress fields induced by two kinds of standard set of force doublets are used as fundamental solutions. Then, the problem is formulated as a system of integral equations with the singularity of the form r ^–2. In the numerical calculation, two kinds of unknown functions are approximated by the products of the fundamental density functions and power series. The calculation shows that the present method gives rapidly converging numerical results for curved cracks under various geometrical conditions. In addition, a method of evaluation of the stress intensity factors for arbitrary shaped curved cracks is proposed using the approximate replacement to a simple straight crack.     

THE BOUNDARY NODE METHOD FOR POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

The Element-Free Galerkin (EFG) method allows one to use a nodal data structure (usually with an underlying cell structure) within the domain of a body of arbitrary shape. The usual EFG combines Moving Least-Squares (MLS) interpolants with a variational principle (weak form) and has been used to solve two-dimensional (2-D) boundary value problems in mechanics such as in potential theory, elasticity and fracture. This paper proposes a combination of MLS interpolants with Boundary Integral Equations (BIE) in order to retain both the meshless attribute of the former and the dimensionality advantage of the latter! This new method, called the Boundary Node Method (BNM), only requires a nodal data structure on the bounding surface of a body whose dimension is one less than that of the domain itself. An underlying cell structure is again used for numerical integration. In principle, the BNM, for 3-D problems, should be extremely powerful since one would only need to put nodes (points) on the surface of a solid model for an object. Numerical results are presented in this paper for the solution of Laplace's equation in 2-D. Dirichlet, Neumann and mixed problems have been solved, some on bodies with piecewise straight and others with curved boundaries. Results from these numerical examples are extremely encouraging. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.