A Hybrid T Matrix/Boundary Element Method for Elastic Wave Scattering from a Defect Near a Non-planar Surface

The in-plane P-SV scattering of elastic waves by a defect and a close non-planar surface is considered. A hybrid T matrix/boundary element approach is used, where a boundary integral equation is used for the non-planar surface and the Green’s tensor in this integral equation is chosen as the one for the defect and thus incorporates the transition (T) matrix of the defect. The integral equation is discretized by the boundary element method in a standard way. Also models of ultrasonic probes in transmission and reception are included. In the numerical examples the defect is for simplicity chosen as a circular cavity. This cavity is located close to a non-planar surface, which is planar except for a smooth transition between two planar parts. It is illustrated that the scattering by the cavity and the non-planar surface becomes quite complicated, and that shielding and masking may appear.     

A coupled symmetric BE–FE method for acoustic fluid–structure interaction

A coupled symmetric BE–FE method for the calculation of linear acoustic fluid–structure interaction in time and frequency domain is presented. In the coupling formulation a newly developed hybrid boundary element method (HBEM) will be used to describe the behaviour of the compressible fluid. The HBEM is based on Hamilton's principle formulated with the velocity potential. The state variables are separated into boundary variables which are approximated by piecewise polynomial functions and domain variables which are approximated by a superposition of static fundamental solutions. The domain integrals are eliminated, respectively, replaced by boundary integrals and a boundary element formulation with a symmetric mass and stiffness matrix is obtained as result. The structure is discretized by FEM. The coupling conditions fulfil C¹-continuity on the interface. The coupled formulation can also be used for eigenfrequency analyses by transforming it from time domain into frequency domain.     

NUMERICAL GRID GENERATION OF AN IRREGULAR REGION

A procedure of numerical conformal mapping is established to generate grids of a two-dimensional irregular region for further computations. The approach employs a sequence of Zⁿ transformations to map an irregular region into a quadrilateral region with right angles at each of the four corners. This quadrilateral region is then transformed into a rectangular domain by using the boundary integral element method to solve the Laplace mapping equations. Grids are generated in the transformed rectangular domain and are mapped inversely into the original irregular region. The present technique of grid generation is demonstrated and verified in two benchmark problems. For physical applications, steady-state temperature distributions in a circle and an area bounded by two triangles are calculated and verified, using the present techniques. The present technique of numerical conformal mapping can generate grids for the finite element method or boundary-fitted co-ordinates for the finite difference method. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Formulation and implementation of a high-order 3-D domain integral method for the extraction of energy release rates

This article presents a three dimensional (3-D) formulation and implementation of a high-order domain integral method for the computation of energy release rate. The method is derived using surface and domain formulations of the J-integral and the weighted residual method. The J-integral along 3-D crack fronts is approximated by high-order Legendre polynomials. The proposed implementation is tailored for the Generalized/eXtended Finite Element Method and can handle discontinuities arbitrarily located within a finite element mesh. The domain integral calculations are based on the same integration elements used for the computation of the stiffness matrix. Discontinuities of the integrands across crack surfaces and across computational element boundaries are fully accounted for. The proposed method is able to deliver smooth approximations and to capture the boundary layer behavior of the J-integral using tetrahedral meshes. Numerical simulations of mode-I and mixed mode benchmark fracture mechanics examples verify expected convergence rates for the computed energy release rates. The results are also in good agreement with other numerical solutions available in the literature.     

Boundary element analysis of ductile crack growth using the traction-free fundamental solution

A new boundary element formulation in two-dimensional rate-independent plasticity is given. This new formulation uses a so-called traction-free fundamental solution so that the resulting boundary integral equation converges in the normal sense, and more important, a formal differentiation of the boundary integral equation leads to a valid integral representation for the in-plane stress component on the boundary. No finite difference approximation is needed to construct the stress recovery routine. The new boundary element method is then used to solve the problem of quasi-static ductile crack growth. Numerical simulations based on a set of experimental data have been carried out to evaluate a new path-independent integral,T* _M . TheT* _M ,-integral is a modified version of Atluri'sT*-integral. This modified version has an advantage of having a less singular domain integral near the crack flank so that it is numericaly preferable toT*.     

HYPERSINGULAR RESIDUALS—A NEW APPROACH FOR ERROR ESTIMATION IN THE BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD

This paper presents a new approach for a posteriori ‘pointwise’ error estimation in the boundary element method. The estimator relies upon evaluation of the residual of hypersingular integral equations, and is therefore intrinsic to the boundary integral equation approach. A methodology is developed for approximating the error on the boundary as well as in the interior of the domain. Extensive computational experiments have been performed for the two-dimensional Laplace equation and the numerical results indicate that the error estimates successfully track the form of the exact error curve. Moreover, a reasonable estimate of the magnitude of the actual error is also predicted.     

Application of the adaptive cross approximation technique for the coupled BE-FE solution of symmetric electromagnetic problems

Electromagnetic devices can be analysed by the coupled BE-FE method, where the conducting and magnetic parts are discretized by finite elements. In contrast, the surrounding space is described with the help of the boundary element method (BEM). This discretization scheme is well suited especially for problems including moving parts (see [12]). The BEM discretization of the boundary integral operators usually leads to dense matrices without any structure. A naive strategy for the solution of the corresponding linear system would need at least O(N ²) operations and memory, where N ist the number of unknowns. Methods such as fast multipole [6] and panel clustering [9] provide an approximation to the matrix in almost linear complexity. These methods are based on explicitly given kernel approximations by degenerate kernels, i.e. a finite sum of separable functions, which may be seen as a blockwise low-rank approximation of the system matrix. The blockwise approximant permits a fast matrix-vector multiplication, which can be exploited in iterative solvers, and can be stored efficiently. In contrast to the methods mentioned we will generate [2] the low-rank approximant from the matrix itself using only few entries and without using any explicit a priori known degenerate-kernel approximation. Special emphasis is put on the handling of symmetry conditions in connection with ACA. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated by means of a numerical example.     

A boundary point interpolation method for stress analysis of solids

 A boundary point interpolation method (BPIM) is proposed for solving boundary value problems of solid mechanics. In the BPIM, the boundary of a problem domain is represented by properly scattered nodes. The boundary integral equation (BIE) for 2-D elastostatics has been discretized using point interpolants based only on a group of arbitrarily distributed boundary points. In the present BPIM formulation, the shape functions constructed using polynomial basis function in a curvilinear coordinate possess Dirac delta function property. The boundary conditions can be implemented with ease as in the conventional boundary element method (BEM). The BPIM for 2-D elastostatics has been coded in FORTRAN, and used to obtain numerical results for stress analysis of two-dimensional solids. Received 10 January 2000     

Circulant preconditioners for ill-conditioned boundary integral equations from potential equations

In this paper, we consider solving potential equations by the boundary integral equation approach. The equations so derived are Fredholm integral equations of the first kind and are known to be ill-conditioned. Their discretized matrices are dense and have condition numbers growing like O(n) where n is the matrix size. We propose to solve the equations by the preconditioned conjugate gradient method with circulant integral operators as preconditioners. These are convolution operators with periodic kernels and hence can be inverted efficiently by using fast Fourier transforms. We prove that the preconditioned systems are well conditioned, and hence the convergence rate of the method is linear. Numerical results for two types of regions are given to illustrate the fast convergence. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A boundary/domain element method for analysis of building raft foundations

In this paper, a new boundary/domain element method is developed to analyse plates resting on elastic foundations. The developed formulation is then used in analysing building raft foundations. For more practical representation, the considered raft plate is treated as thick plate with free edge boundary conditions. The soil or the elastic foundation is represented as continuous media (follows the Winkler assumption). The boundary element method is employed to model the raft plate; whereas the soil is modelled using constant domain cells or elements. Therefore, in the present formulation both the domain and the boundary of the raft plate are discretized. The associate soil domain integral is replaced by equivalent boundary integrals along each cell contour. The necessary matrix implementation of such formulation is carried out and explained in details. The main advantage of the present formulation is the ability of analysing rafts on non-homogenous soils. Two examples are presented including raft on non-homogenous soil and raft for practical building applications. The results are compared with those obtained from other finite element and alternative boundary element methods to verify the validity and accuracy of the present formulation.     

Boundary element analysis for an interface crack between dissimilar elastoplastic materials

The boundary element method (BEM) is presented for elastoplastic analysis of cracks between two dissimilar materials. The boundary integral equations and integral representation of stress rates are written in such a form that all integrals can be evaluated by the regular Gaussian quadrature rule. An advanced multidomain BEM formulation is suggested for the solution of analysed problems where the substantial reduction of stiffness matrix is observed. The elastoplastic behaviour is modelled through the use of an approximation for the plastic component of the stresses. The boundary and the yielding zone are discretized by elements with quadratic approximations. In numerical examples the path independence of the J- and L-integrals for a straight interface crack and a circular arc-shaped interface crack are investigated, respectively. The influence of the different values of Young's modulus on the J-integral, shape and size of plastic zones is treated too.     

The dual boundary element formulation for elastoplastic fracture mechanics

In this paper the extension of the dual boundary element method (DBEM) to the analysis of elastoplastic fracture mechanics (EPFM) problems is presented. The dual equations of the method are the displacement and the traction boundary integral equations. When the displacement equation is applied on one of the crack surfaces and the traction equation on the other, general mixed-mode crack problems can be solved with a single-region formulation. In order to avoid collocation at crack tips, crack kinks and crack-edge corners, both crack surfaces are discretized with discontinuous quadratic boundary elements. The elastoplastic behaviour is modelled through the use of an approximation for the plastic component of the strain tensor on the region expected to yield. This region is discretized with internal quadratic, quadrilateral and/or triangular cells. This formulation was implemented for two-dimensional domains only, although there is no theoretical or numerical limitation to its application to three-dimensional ones. A centre-cracked plate and a slant edge-cracked plate subjected to tensile load are analysed and the results are compared with others available in the literature. J-type integrals are calculated.     

A hybrid element method for diffraction of water waves by three-dimensional bodies

A hybrid element method developed recently for two-dimensional problems of water waves in an infinite fluid is extended to three dimensions. In this method only a limited fluid domain close to irregular bodies is discretized into conventional finite elements, while the remaining infinite domain is treated as one element with analytical representations of high accuracy. Continuity at the junction surface is treated as natural boundary conditions in a variational principle. Computation experience and numerical results for several ocean structures are presented.     

Calculation of T-stress for cracks in two-dimensional anisotropic elastic media by boundary integral equation method

A numerical procedure is proposed to compute the T-stress for two-dimensional cracks in general anisotropic elastic media. T-stress is determined from the sum of crack-face displacements which are computed via an integral equation of the boundary data. To smooth out the data in order to perform accurately numerical differentiation, the sum of crack-face displacement is established in a weak-form integral equation in which the integration domain is simply the crack-tip element. This weak-form integral equation is then solved numerically using standard Galerkin approximation to obtain the nodal values of the sum of crack-face displacements. The procedure is incorporated in a weakly-singular symmetric Galerkin boundary element method in which all integral equations for the traction and displacement on the boundary of the domain and on the crack faces include (at most) weakly-singular kernels. To examine the accuracy and efficiency of the developed method, various numerical examples for cracks in infinite and finite domains are treated. It is shown that highly accurate results are obtained using relatively coarse meshes.     

An immersed finite element method with integral equation correction

We propose a robust immersed finite element method in which an integral equation formulation is used to enforce essential boundary conditions. The solution of a boundary value problem is expressed as the superposition of a finite element solution and an integral equation solution. For computing the finite element solution, the physical domain is embedded into a slightly larger Cartesian (box‐shaped) domain and is discretized using a block‐structured mesh. The defect in the essential boundary conditions, which occurs along the physical domain boundaries, is subsequently corrected with an integral equation method. In order to facilitate the mapping between the finite element and integral equation solutions, the physical domain boundary is represented with a signed distance function on the block‐structured mesh. As a result, only a boundary mesh of the physical domain is necessary and no domain mesh needs to be generated, except for the non‐boundary‐conforming block‐structured mesh. The overall approach is first presented for the Poisson equation and then generalized to incompressible viscous flow equations. As an example of fluid–structure coupling, the settling of a heavy rigid particle in a closed tank is considered. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New finite element model for analysis of Kirchhoff plate

A new kind of approach to formulate an isotropic thin plate bending element is presented. The strain energy of the element is decomposed into two parts: an integral concerning the first strain invariant and a line integral around the elemental boundary. The former can be discretized by quasi-conforming technique¹ and the latter can be directly calculated using the interpolation of the deflection and its normal slope along the element boundary. By this method, an assumed first strain invariant quadrilateral element (AFSIQ) is derived. The procedure of formulating the element and the numerical examples show that the new kind of element not only simplifies the formulation considerably but also has excellent accuracy.     

Finite element evaluation of mixed mode stress intensity factors in functionally graded materials

This paper is directed towards finite element computation of fracture parameters in functionally graded material (FGM) assemblages of arbitrary geometry with stationary cracks. Graded finite elements are developed where the elastic moduli are smooth functions of spatial co‐ordinates which are integrated into the element stiffness matrix. In particular, stress intensity factors for mode I and mixed‐mode two‐dimensional problems are evaluated and compared through three different approaches tailored for FGMs: path‐independent J^*_k‐integral, modified crack‐closure integral method, and displacement correlation technique. The accuracy of these methods is discussed based on comparison with available theoretical, experimental or numerical solutions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Efficient solution of time‐domain boundary integral equations arising in sound‐hard scattering

We consider the efficient numerical solution of the three‐dimensional wave equation with Neumann boundary conditions via time‐domain boundary integral equations. A space‐time Galerkin method with C^∞‐smooth, compactly supported basis functions in time and piecewise polynomial basis functions in space is employed. We discuss the structure of the system matrix and its efficient parallel assembly. Different preconditioning strategies for the solution of the arising systems with block Hessenberg matrices are proposed and investigated numerically. Furthermore, a C++ implementation parallelized by OpenMP and MPI in shared and distributed memory, respectively, is presented. The code is part of the boundary element library BEM4I. Results of numerical experiments including convergence and scalability tests up to a thousand cores on a cluster are provided. The presented implementation shows good parallel scalability of the system matrix assembly. Moreover, the proposed algebraic preconditioner in combination with the FGMRES solver leads to a significant reduction of the computational time. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dual boundary element method: Effective implementation for crack problems

The present paper is concerned with the effective numerical implementation of the two-dimensional dual boundary element method, for linear elastic crack problems. The dual equations of the method are the displacement and the traction boundary integral equations. When the displacement equation is applied on one of the crack surfaces and the traction equation on the other, general mixed-mode crack problems can be solved with a single-region formulation. Both crack surfaces are discretized with discontinuous quadratic boundary elements; this strategy not only automatically satisfies the necessary conditions for the existence of the finite-part integrals, which occur naturally, but also circumvents the problem of collocation at crack tips, crack kinks and crack-edge corners. Examples of geometries with edge, and embedded crack are analysed with the present method. Highly accurate results are obtained, when the stress intensity factor is evaluated with the J-integral technique. The accuracy and efficiency of the implementation described herein make this formulation ideal for the study of crack growth problems under mixed-mode conditions.