Dynamic elastoplastic analysis of 3-D structures by the domain/boundary element method

The main objective of this paper is to present a general three-dimensional boundary element methodology for solving transient dynamic elastoplastic problems. The elastostatic fundamental solution is used in writing the integral representation and this creates in addition to the surface integrals, volume integrals due to inertia and inelasticity. Thus, an interior discretization in addition to the usual surface discretization is necessary. Isoparametric linear quadrilateral elements are used for the surface discretization and isoparametric linear hexahedra for the interior discretization. Advanced numerical integration techniques for singular and nearly singular integrals are employed. Houbolt's step-by-step numerical time integration algorithm is used to provide the dynamic response. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the method and demonstrate its accuracy.     

A semi-analytical algorithm for the evaluation of the nearly singular integrals in three-dimensional boundary element methods

The nearly singular integrals occur in the boundary integral equations when the source point is close to an integration element (as compared to its size) but not on the element. In this paper, the concept of a relative distance from a source point to the boundary element is introduced to describe possible influence of the singularity of the integrals. Then a semi-analytical algorithm is proposed for evaluating the nearly strongly singular and hypersingular integrals in the three-dimensional BEM. By using integration by parts, the nearly singular surface integrals on the elements are transformed to a series of line integrals along the contour of the element. The singular behavior, which appears as factor, is separated from remaining regular integrals. Consequently standard numerical quadrature can provide very accurate evaluation of the resulting line integrals. The semi-analytical algorithm is applied to analyzing the three-dimensional elasticity problems, such as very thin-walled structures. Meanwhile, the displacements and stresses at the interior points very close to its bounding surface are also determined efficiently. The results of the numerical investigation demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the algorithm.     

Development of a meshless Galerkin boundary node method for viscous fluid flows

In this paper, a meshless Galerkin boundary node method is developed for boundary-only analysis of the interior and exterior incompressible viscous fluid flows, governed by the Stokes equations, in biharmonic stream function formulation. This method combines scattered points and boundary integral equations. Some of the novel features of this meshless scheme are boundary conditions can be enforced directly and easily despite the meshless shape functions lack the delta function property, and system matrices are symmetric and positive definite. The error analysis and convergence study of both velocity and pressure are presented in Sobolev spaces. The performance of this approach is illustrated and assessed through some numerical examples.     

Application of thin plate splines for solving a class of boundary integral equations arisen from Laplace's equations with nonlinear boundary conditions

This article describes a technique for numerically solving a class of nonlinear boundary integral equations of the second kind with logarithmic singular kernels. These types of integral equations occur as a reformulation of boundary value problems of Laplace's equations with nonlinear Robin boundary conditions. The method uses thin plate splines (TPSs) constructed on scattered points as a basis in the discrete collocation method. The TPSs can be seen as a type of the free shape parameter radial basis functions which establish effective and stable methods to estimate an unknown function. The proposed scheme utilizes a special accurate quadrature formula based on the non-uniform Gauss–Legendre integration rule for approximating logarithm-like singular integrals appeared in the approach. The numerical method developed in the current paper does not require any mesh generations, so it is meshless and independent of the geometry of the domain. The algorithm of the presented scheme is accurate and easy to implement on computers. The error analysis of the method is provided. The convergence validity of the new technique is examined over several boundary integral equations and obtained results confirm the theoretical error estimates.     

Analytical integral algorithm applied to boundary layer effect and thin body effect in BEM for anisotropic potential problems

A new completely analytical integral algorithm is proposed and applied to the evaluation of nearly singular integrals in boundary element method (BEM) for two-dimensional anisotropic potential problems. The boundary layer effect and thin body effect are dealt with. The completely analytical integral formulas are suitable for the linear and non-isoparametric quadratic elements. The present algorithm applies the analytical formulas to treat nearly singular integrals. The potentials and fluxes at the interior points very close to boundary are evaluated. The unknown potentials and fluxes at boundary nodes for thin body problems with the thickness-to-length ratios from 1E−1 to 1E−8 are accurately calculated by the present algorithm. Numerical examples on heat conduction demonstrate that the present algorithm can effectively handle nearly singular integrals occurring in boundary layer effect and thin body effect in BEM. Furthermore, the present linear BEM is especially accurate and efficient for the numerical analysis of thin body problems.     

Evaluation of singular integrals in the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method

The implementation of the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method (SGBEM) involves extensive work on the evaluation of various integrals, ranging from regular integrals to hypersingular integrals. In this paper, the treatments of weak singular integrals in the time domain are reviewed, and analytical evaluations for the spatial double integrals which contain weak singular terms are derived. A special scheme on the allocation of Gaussian integration points for regular double integrals in the SGBEM is developed to improve the efficiency of the Gauss–Legendre rule. The proposed approach is implemented for the two-dimensional elastodynamic problems, and two numerical examples are presented to verify the accuracy of the numerical implementation.     

Global and local Trefftz boundary integral formulations for sound vibration

The sound-pressure field harmonically varying in time is governed by the Helmholtz equation. The Trefftz boundary integral equation method is presented to solve two-dimensional boundary value problems. Both direct and indirect BIE formulations are given. Non-singular Trefftz formulations lead to regular integrals counterpart to the conventional BIE with the singular fundamental solution. The paper presents also the local boundary integral equations with Trefftz functions as a test function. Physical fields are approximated by the moving least-square in the meshless implementation. Numerical results are given for a square patch test and a circular disc.     

Bending of anisotropic plates by charge simulation method

A boundary element method, called the charge simulation method, is presented for analysis of anisotropic thin-plate bending problems. In this method the singular integrals involved in the other boundary element methods are eliminated and there is no numerical integration involved. Further, the domain integral is replaced by a polynomial particular integral; hence the domain discretization is avoided. This method is conceptually very simple. The results obtained by this method are compared with the available analytical solutions for various anisotropic and symmetric laminates and the results are in good agreement.     

An effective method for numerical evaluation of general 2D and 3D high order singular boundary integrals

In this paper, a robust method is presented for numerical evaluation of weakly, strongly, hyper- and super-singular boundary integrals, which exist in the Cauchy principal value sense in two- and three-dimensional problems. In this method, the singularities involved in integration kernels are analytically removed by expressing the non-singular parts of the integration kernels as power series in the local distance ρ of the intrinsic coordinate system. For three-dimensional boundary integrals, the radial integration method [1] is applied to transform the surface integral into a line integral over the contour of the surface and to remove various orders of singularities within the radial integrals. Some examples are provided to verify the correctness and robustness of the presented method.     

A partition of unity enriched dual boundary element method for accurate computations in fracture mechanics

We introduce a novel enriched Boundary Element Method (BEM) and Dual Boundary Element Method (DBEM) approach for accurate evaluation of Stress Intensity Factors (SIFs) in crack problems. The formulation makes use of the Partition of Unity Method (PUM) such that functions obtained from a priori knowledge of the solution space can be incorporated in the element formulation. An enrichment strategy is described, in which boundary integral equations formed at additional collocation points are used to provide auxiliary equations in order to accommodate the extra introduced unknowns. In addition, an efficient numerical quadrature method is outlined for the evaluation of strongly singular and hypersingular enriched boundary integrals. Finally, results are shown for mixed mode crack problems; these illustrate that the introduction of PUM enrichment provides for an improvement in accuracy of approximately one order of magnitude in comparison to the conventional unenriched DBEM.     

Transient analysis of the dynamic stress intensity factors using SGBEM for frequency-domain elastodynamics

In this paper, a two-dimensional symmetric-Galerkin boundary integral formulation for elastodynamic fracture analysis in the frequency domain is described. The numerical implementation is carried out with quadratic elements, allowing the use of an improved quarter-point element for accurately determining frequency responses of the dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs). To deal with singular and hypersingular integrals, the formulation is decomposed into two parts: the first part is identical to that for elastostatics while the second part contains at most logarithmic singularities. The treatment of the elastostatic singular and hypersingular singular integrals employs an exterior limit to the boundary, while the weakly singular integrals in the second part are handled by Gauss quadrature. Time histories (transient responses) of the DSIFs can be obtained in a post-processing step by applying the standard fast Fourier transform (FFT) and algorithm to the frequency responses of these DSIFs. Several test examples are presented for the calculation of the DSIFs due to two types of impact loading: Heaviside step loading and blast loading. The results suggest that the combination of the symmetric-Galerkin boundary element method and standard FFT algorithms in determining transient responses of the DSIFs is a robust and effective technique.     

A node-centric indirect boundary element method: three-dimensional displacement discontinuities

An indirect boundary element formulation based on unknown physical values, defined only at the nodes (vertices) of a boundary discretization of a linear elastic continuum, is introduced. As an adaptation of this general framework, a linear displacement discontinuity density distribution using a flat triangular boundary discretization is considered. A unified element integration methodology based on the continuation principle is introduced to handle regular as well as near-singular and singular integrals. The boundary functions that form the basis of the integration methodology are derived and tabulated in the appendix for linear displacement discontinuity densities. The integration of the boundary functions is performed numerically using an adaptive algorithm which ensures a specified numerical accuracy. The applications include verification examples which have closed-form analytical solutions as well as practical problems arising in rock engineering. The node-centric displacement discontinuity method is shown to be numerically efficient and robust for such problems.     

A meshless Galerkin method for Stokes problems using boundary integral equations

A meshless Galerkin scheme for the simulation of two-dimensional incompressible viscous fluid flows in primitive variables is described in this paper. This method combines a boundary integral formulation for the Stokes equation with the moving least-squares (MLS) approximations for construction of trial and test functions for Galerkin approximations. Unlike the domain-type method, this scheme requires only a nodal structure on the bounding surface of a body for approximation of boundary unknowns, thus it is especially suitable for the exterior problems. Compared to other meshless methods such as the boundary node method and the element free Galerkin method, in which the MLS is also introduced, boundary conditions do not present any difficulty in using this meshless method. The convergence and error estimates of this approach are presented. Numerical examples are also given to show the efficiency of the method.     

Numerical evaluation of singular and finite-part integrals on curved surfaces using symbolic manipulation

The numerical integration of all singular surface integrals arising in 3-d boundary element methods is analyzed theoretically and computationally. For all weakly singular integrals arising in BEM, Duffy's triangular or local polar coordinates in conjunction with tensor product Gaussian quadrature are efficient and reliable for bothh-andp-boundary elements. Cauchy- and hypersingular surface integrals are reduced to weakly singular ones by analytic regularization which is done automatically by symbolic manipulation.     

A new fast multipole boundary element method for two dimensional acoustic problems

A new fast multipole boundary element method (BEM) is presented in this paper for solving large-scale two dimensional (2D) acoustic problems based on the improved Burton–Miller formulation. This algorithm has several important improvements. The fast multipole BEM employs the improved Burton–Miller formulation, and successfully overcomes the non-uniqueness difficulty associated with the conventional BEM for exterior acoustic problems. The improved Burton–Miller formulation contains only weakly singular integrals, and avoids the numerical difficulties associated to the evaluation of the hypersingular integral, it leads to the numerical implementations more efficient and straightforward. Furthermore, the fast multipole method (FMM) and the approximate inverse preconditioned generalized minimum residual method (GMRES) iterative solver are adopted to greatly improve the overall computational efficiency. The numerical examples with Neumann boundary conditions are presented that clearly demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the developed fast multipole BEM for solving large-scale 2D acoustic problems in a wide range of frequencies.     

Graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated fast multipole BEM with level-skip M2L for 3D elasticity problems

In order to accelerate fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM), in terms of the intrinsic parallelism of boundary elements and the FMBEM tree structure, a series of CUDA based GPU parallel algorithms for different parts of FMBEM with level-skip M2L for 3D elasticity are presented. A rigid body motion method (RBMM) for the FMBEM is proposed based on special displacement boundary conditions to deal with strongly singular integration and free term coefficients. The numerical example results show that our parallel algorithms obviously accelerates the FMBEM and can be used in large scale engineering problems with wide applications in the future.     

Development of a noise prediction software NASEFA and its application in medium-to-high frequency ranges

For the analysis of noise problems in medium-to-high frequency ranges, the energy flow boundary element method (EFBEM) has been studied. EFBEM is numerical analysis method of energy flow analysis (EFA), and solves energy governing equations using a boundary element method in complex structures. Based on EFBEM, a noise prediction software, “noise analysis system by energy flow analysis” (NASEFA), was developed. For effective maintenance, NASEFA is composed of three main modules: the translator, the model converter, and the main solver. The translator changes the FE model to the NASEFA BE model, and the model converter changes the BE model to an EFBE model, including various data, such as structural materials, medium properties, sources, and boundary conditions. NASEFA then solves the acoustic energy density and intensity on boundary and in the field. Moreover, it analyzes interior and exterior noise problems for single and multiple domains in two and three dimensions. Finally, for the validation of the software developed, interior and exterior noise predictions of various structures were performed. The results obtained with NASEFA were compared with those of the commercial SEA program and experiment. From these comparative studies, the usefulness of NASEFA was established.     

NURBS-enhanced line integration boundary element method for 2D elasticity problems with body forces

A NURBS-enhanced boundary element method for 2D elasticity problems with body forces is proposed in this paper. The non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) basis functions are applied to construct the geometry and the model can be reproduced exactly at all stages since the refinement will not change the shape of the boundary. Both open curves and closed curves are considered. The fields are approximated by the traditional Lagrangian basis functions in parameter space, rather than by the same NURBS basis functions for geometry approximation. The parametric boundary elements and collocation nodes are defined from the knot vector of the curve and the refinement of the NURBS curve is easy. Boundary conditions can be imposed directly since the Lagrangian basis functions have the property of delta function. In addition, most methods for the treatment of singular integrals in traditional boundary element method can be applied in the proposed method. To overcome the difficulty for evaluation of the domain integrals in problems with body forces, a line integration method is further applied in this paper to compute the domain integrals without additional volume discretizations. Numerical examples have shown the accuracy of the proposed method.     

Analysis of thin piezoelectric solids by the boundary element method

The piezoelectric boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation is applied to analyze thin piezoelectric solids, such as thin piezoelectric films and coatings, using the boundary element method (BEM). The nearly singular integrals existing in the piezoelectric BIE as applied to thin piezoelectric solids are addressed for the 2-D case. An efficient analytical method to deal with the nearly singular integrals in the piezoelectric BIE is developed to accurately compute these integrals in the piezoelectric BEM, no matter how close the source point is to the element of integration. Promising BEM results with only a small number of elements are obtained for thin films and coatings with the thickness-to-length ratio as small as 10⁻⁶, which is sufficient for modeling many thin piezoelectric films as used in smart materials and micro-electro-mechanical systems.     

A BEM-based domain meshless method for the analysis of Mindlin plates with general boundary conditions

In this paper, a BEM-based domain meshless method is developed for the analysis of moderately thick plates modeled by Mindlin’s theory which permits the satisfaction of three physical conditions along the plate boundary. The presented method is achieved using the concept of the analog equation of Katsikadelis. According to this concept, the original governing differential equations are replaced by three uncoupled Poisson’s equations with fictitious sources under the same boundary conditions. The fictitious sources are established using a technique based on BEM and approximated by radial basis functions series. The solution of the actual problem is obtained from the known integral representation of the potential problem. Thus, the kernels of the boundary integral equations are conveniently established and evaluated. The presented method has the advantages of the BEM in the sense that the discretization and integration are performed only on the boundary, and consequently Mindlin plates with general boundary conditions can be analyzed without difficulty. To illustrate the effectiveness, applicability as well as accuracy of the method, numerical results of various example problems are presented.