On shape differentiation of discretized electric field integral equation

This work presents shape derivatives of the system matrix representing electric field integral equation discretized with Raviart–Thomas basis functions. The arising integrals are easy to compute with similar methods as the entries of the original system matrix. The results are compared to derivatives computed with automatic differentiation technique and finite differences, and are found to be in an excellent agreement. Furthermore, the derived formulas are employed to analyze shape sensitivity of the input impedance of a planar inverted F-antenna, and the results are compared to those obtained using a finite difference approximation.     

Analytic preconditioners for the electric field integral equation

Since the advent of the fast multipole method, large‐scale electromagnetic scattering problems based on the electric field integral equation (EFIE) formulation are generally solved by a Krylov iterative solver. A well‐known fact is that the dense complex non‐hermitian linear system associated to the EFIE becomes ill‐conditioned especially in the high‐frequency regime. As a consequence, this slows down the convergence rate of Krylov subspace iterative solvers. In this work, a new analytic preconditioner based on the combination of a finite element method with a local absorbing boundary condition is proposed to improve the convergence of the iterative solver for an open boundary. Some numerical tests precise the behaviour of the new preconditioner. Moreover, comparisons are performed with the analytic preconditioner based on the Calderòn's relations for integral equations for several kinds of scatterers. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New investigations into the BKM for inverse problems of Helmholtz equation

The boundary knot method (BKM) is an inherent boundary-type meshless collocation method for partial differential equations (PDEs). Using non-singular general solutions, numerical solutions of the PDE can be obtained based on the boundary points. In this paper, we investigate the applications of the BKM to solve Helmholtz problems involving various boundary conditions. We use the effective condition number to investigate the ill-conditioned interpolation system. Different from previous investigations, numerical results in this paper reveal that the BKM is promising in dealing with Helmholtz problems under only partially accessible boundary conditions.     

Degenerate scale for the analysis of circular thin plate using the boundary integral equation method and boundary element methods

In this paper, the degenerate scale for plate problem is studied. For the continuous model, we use the null-field integral equation, Fourier series and the series expansion in terms of degenerate kernel for fundamental solutions to examine the solvability of BIEM for circular thin plates. Any two of the four boundary integral equations in the plate formulation may be chosen. For the discrete model, the circulant is employed to determine the rank deficiency of the influence matrix. Both approaches, continuous and discrete models, lead to the same result of degenerate scale. We study the nonunique solution analytically for the circular plate and find degenerate scales. The similar properties of solvability condition between the membrane (Laplace) and plate (biharmonic) problems are also examined. The number of degenerate scales for the six boundary integral formulations is also determined. Tel.: 886-2-2462-2192-ext. 6140 or 6177     

Improving on near-surface field evaluation in the boundary-element method

A method for removing the numerical instability of the conventional Green's formula in the vicinity of the boundary surface is proposed. The approach uses a pair of Green's formulae written both inside and outside the volume of interest, even when used for solving a single-phase problem. It is shown that cancellation between the pair yields an alternative, singularity-free integral representation that is amenable to numerical calculation. The derivation of the formula is given explicitly and is accompanied by several numerical test results for validation.     

The radial basis integral equation method for solving the Helmholtz equation

A meshless method for the solution of Helmholtz equation has been developed by using the radial basis integral equation method (RBIEM). The derivation of the integral equation used in the RBIEM is based on the fundamental solution of the Helmholtz equation, therefore domain integrals are not encountered in the method. The method exploits the advantage of placing the source points always in the centre of circular sub-domains in order to avoid singular or near-singular integrals. Three equations for two-dimensional (2D) or four for three-dimensional (3D) potential problems are required at each node. The first equation is the integral equation arising from the application of the Green’s identities and the remaining equations are the derivatives of the first equation with respect to space coordinates. Radial basis function (RBF) interpolation is applied in order to obtain the values of the field variable and partial derivatives at the boundary of the circular sub-domains, providing this way the boundary conditions for solution of the integral equations at the nodes (centres of circles). The accuracy and robustness of the method has been tested on some analytical solutions of the problem. Two different RBFs have been used, namely augmented thin plate spline (ATPS) in 2D and f(R)=⁴Rln(R) augmented by a second order polynomial. The latter has been found to produce more accurate results.     

Time marching integral equation method for unsteady transonic flows around airfoils

A time marching integral equation method has been proposed here which does not have the limitation of the time linearized integral equation method in that the latter method can not satisfactorily simulate the shock wave motions. Firstly, a model problem–one dimensional initial and boundary value wave problem is treated to clarify the basic idea of the new method. Then the method is implemented for two dimensional unsteady transonic flow problems. The introduction of the concept of a quasi-velocity-potential simplifies the time marching integral equations and the treatment of trailing vortex sheet condition. The numerical calculations show that the method is reasonable and reliable.     

A new method for the numerical solution of integral equation approximations

A new numerical technique for solving the Ornstein-Zernike equation is described. It is particularly useful in solving the Ornstein-Zernike equation for approximations and pair potentials (such as the Percus-Yevick and mean spherical approximations for finite ranged potentials) which imply a finiteranged direct correlation function since for such approximations the numerical technique is essentially exact. The only approximation involved in such cases is the discretization of direct and total correlation functions over the finite range on which the direct correlation function is nonzero. Thus, the new method avoids truncation of the total correlation function and should permit the critical point and spinodal curve to be mapped out with greater accuracy than is permitted by existing methods. Preliminary explorations on the stability and accuracy of the method are described.Paper presented at the Tenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 20–23, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.     

Boundary integral equation method for two dissimilar elastic inclusions in an infinite plate

This paper provides a numerical solution for an infinite plate containing two dissimilar elastic inclusions, which is based on complex variable boundary integral equation (CVBIE). The original problem is decomposed into two problems. One is an interior boundary value problem (BVP) for two elastic inclusions, while other is an exterior BVP for the matrix with notches. After performing discretization for the coupled boundary integral equations (BIEs), a system of algebraic equations is formulated. The inverse matrix technique is suggested to solve the relevant algebraic equations, which can avoid using the assembling of some matrices. Several numerical examples are carried out to prove the efficiency of suggested method and the hoop stress along the interface boundary is evaluated.     

The computation of the J integral with the traction boundary integral equation

The solutions of the displacement boundary integral equation (BIE) are not uniquely determined in certain types of boundary conditions. Traction boundary integral equations that have unique solutions in these traction and mixed boundary cases are established. For two‐dimensional linear elasticity problems, the divergence‐free property of the traction boundary integral equation is established. By applying Stokes' theorem, unknown tractions or displacements can be reduced to computation of traction integral potential functions at the boundary points. The same is true of the J integral: it is divergence‐free and the evaluation of the J integral can be inverted into the computation of the J integral potential functions at the boundary points of the cracked body. The J integral can be expressed as the linear combination of the tractions and displacements from the traction BIE on the boundary of the cracked body. Numerical integrals are not needed at all. Selected examples are presented to demonstrate the validity of the traction boundary integral and J integral. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary knot method for some inverse problems associated with the Helmholtz equation

The boundary knot method is an inherently meshless, integration‐free, boundary‐type, radial basis function collocation technique for the solution of partial differential equations. In this paper, the method is applied to the solution of some inverse problems for the Helmholtz equation, including the highly ill‐posed Cauchy problem. Since the resulting matrix equation is badly ill‐conditioned, a regularized solution is obtained by employing truncated singular value decomposition, while the regularization parameter for the regularization method is provided by the L‐curve method. Numerical results are presented for both smooth and piecewise smooth geometry. The stability of the method with respect to the noise in the data is investigated by using simulated noisy data. The results show that the method is highly accurate, computationally efficient and stable, and can be a competitive alternative to existing methods for the numerical solution of the problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical solutions of hypersingular integral equation for curved cracks in circular regions

In this paper, numerical solutions of a hypersingular integral equation for curved cracks in circular regions are presented. The boundary of the circular regions is assumed to be traction free or fixed. The suggested complex potential is composed of two parts, the principle part and the complementary part. The principle part can model the property of a curved crack in an infinite plate. For the case of the traction free boundary, the complementary part can compensate the traction on the circular boundary caused by the principle part. Physically, the proposed idea is similar to the image method in electrostatics. By using the crack opening displacement (COD) as the unknown function and traction as right hand term in the equation, a hypersingular integral equation for the curved crack problems in the circular regions is obtained. The equation is solved by using the curve length coordinate method. In order to prove that the suggested method can be used to solve more complicated cases of the curved cracks, several numerical examples are given.     

Boundary integral equation for tangential derivative of flux in Laplace and Helmholtz equations

In this paper, the boundary integral equations (BIEs) for the tangential derivative of flux in Laplace and Helmholtz equations are presented. These integral representations can be used in order to solve several problems in the boundary element method (BEM): cubic solutions including degrees of freedom in flux's tangential derivative value (Hermitian interpolation), nodal sensitivity, analytic gradients in optimization problems, or tangential derivative evaluation in problems that require the computation of such variable (elasticity problems in BEM). The analysis has been developed for 2D formulation. Kernels for tangential derivative of flux lead to high‐order singularities (O(1/r³)). The limit to the boundary analysis has been carried out. Based on this analysis, regularization formulae have been obtained in order to use such BIE in numerical codes. A set of numerical benchmarks have been carried out in order to validate theoretical and practical aspects, by considering known analytic solutions for the test problems. The results show that the tangential BIEs have been properly developed and implemented. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the convergence of iterative solutions of the integral magnetic field equation

The solution of the integral magnetic field equation by numerical iteration is discussed. Using a simple linear example, it is shown rigorously that relaxation techniques are required to obtain convergence. The range of permissible relaxation parameters is examined and that particular value which yields most rapid convergence is determined. An iterative solution to a simple nonlinear problem is shown to converge rapidly if the relaxation parameter is adjusted appropriately at each step in the iteration. For the general case of a saturable media of complex geometric shape, a relaxation matrix method is proposed in order to achieve rapid convergence.     

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.     

An interface integral equation method for solving general multi‐medium mechanics problems

In this paper, based on the general stress–strain relationship, displacement and stress boundary‐domain integral equations are established for single medium with varying material properties. From the established integral equations, single interface integral equations are derived for solving general multi‐medium mechanics problems by making use of the variation feature of the material properties. The displacement and stress interface integral equations derived in this paper can be applied to solve non‐homogeneous, anisotropic, and non‐linear multi‐medium problems in a unified way. By imposing some assumptions on the derived integral equations, detailed expressions for some specific mechanics problems are deduced, and a few numerical examples are given to demonstrate the correctness and robustness of the derived displacement and stress interface integral equations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accelerating boundary integral equation method using a special‐purpose computer

We present a new solution to accelerate the boundary integral equation method (BIEM). The calculation time of the BIEM is dominated by the evaluation of the layer potential in the boundary integral equation. We performed this task using MDGRAPE‐2, a special‐purpose computer designed for molecular dynamics simulations. MDGRAPE‐2 calculates pairwise interactions among particles (e.g. atoms and ions) using hardwired‐pipeline processors. We combined this hardware with an iterative solver. During the iteration process, MDGRAPE‐2 evaluates the layer potential. The rest of the calculation is performed on a conventional PC connected to MDGRAPE‐2. We applied this solution to the Laplace and Helmholtz equations in three dimensions. Numerical tests showed that BIEM is accelerated by a factor of 10–100. Our rather naive solution has a calculation cost of O(N² × N_iter), where N is the number of unknowns and N_iter is the number of iterations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Solution of the second-order one-dimensional hyperbolic telegraph equation by using the dual reciprocity boundary integral equation (DRBIE) method

In this paper, we use a numerical method based on the boundary integral equation (BIE) and an application of the dual reciprocity method (DRM) to solve the second-order one space-dimensional hyperbolic telegraph equation. Also the time stepping scheme is employed to deal with the time derivative. In this study, we have used three different types of radial basis functions (cubic, thin plate spline and linear RBFs), to approximate functions in the dual reciprocity method (DRM). To confirm the accuracy of the new approach and to show the performance of each of the RBFs, several examples are presented. The convergence of the DRBIE method is studied numerically by comparison with the exact solutions of the problems.     

A two-level finite element method and its application to the Helmholtz equation

A two-level finite element method is introduced and its application to the Helmholtz equation is considered. The method retains the desirable features of the Galerkin method enriched with residual-free bubbles, while it is not limited to discretizations using elements with simple geometry. The method can be applied to other equations and to irregular-shaped domains. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.