The MFS for numerical boundary identification in two-dimensional harmonic problems

In this study, we briefly review the applications of the method of fundamental solutions to inverse problems over the last decade. Subsequently, we consider the inverse geometric problem of identifying an unknown part of the boundary of a domain in which the Laplace equation is satisfied. Additional Cauchy data are provided on the known part of the boundary. The method of fundamental solutions is employed in conjunction with regularization in order to obtain a stable solution. Numerical results are presented and discussed.     

The Spring-Damping Regularization Method and the Lie-Group Shooting Method for Inverse Cauchy Problems

The inverse Cauchy problems for elliptic equations, such as the Laplace equation, the Poisson equation, the Helmholtz equation and the modified Helmholtz equation, defined in annular domains are investigated. The outer boundary of the annulus is imposed by overspecified boundary data, and we seek unknown data on the inner boundary through the numerical solution by a spring-damping regularization method and its Lie-group shooting method (LGSM). Several numerical examples are examined to show that the LGSM can overcome the ill-posed behavior of inverse Cauchy problem against the disturbance from random noise, and the computational cost is very cheap.     

Indirect Trefftz method for boundary value problem of Poisson equation

Trefftz method is the boundary-type solution procedure using regular T-complete functions satisfying the governing equation. Until now, it has been mainly applied to numerical analyses of the problems governed with the homogeneous differential equations such as the two- and three-dimensional Laplace problems and the two-dimensional elastic problem without body forces. On the other hand, this paper describes the application of the indirect Trefftz method to the solution of the boundary value problems of the two-dimensional Poisson equation. Since the Poisson equation has an inhomogeneous term, it is generally difficult to determine the T-complete function satisfying the governing equation. In this paper, the inhomogeneous term containing an unknown function is approximated by a polynomial in the Cartesian coordinates to determine the particular solutions related to the inhomogeneous term. Then, the boundary value problem of the Poisson equation is transformed to that of the Laplace equation by using the particular solution. Once the boundary value problem of the Poisson equation is solved according to the ordinary Trefftz formulation, the solution of the boundary value problem of the Poisson equation is estimated from the solution of the Laplace equation and the particular solution. The unknown parameters included in the particular solution are determined by the iterative process. The present scheme is applied to some examples in order to examine the numerical properties.     

The method of fundamental solutions for a biharmonic inverse boundary determination problem

In this paper, a nonlinear inverse boundary value problem associated to the biharmonic equation is investigated. This problem consists of determining an unknown boundary portion of a solution domain by using additional data on the remaining known part of the boundary. The method of fundamental solutions (MFS), in combination with the Tikhonov zeroth order regularization technique, are employed. It is shown that the MFS regularization numerical technique produces a stable and accurate numerical solution for an optimal choice of the regularization parameter. A. Zeb on study leave visiting the University of Leeds.     

Geometric solution strategy of Laplace problems with free boundary

This paper introduces a geometric solution strategy for Laplace problems. Our main interest and emphasis is on efficient solution of the inverse problem with a boundary with Cauchy condition and with a free boundary. This type of problem is known to be sensitive to small errors. We start from the standard Laplace problem and establish the geometric solution strategy on the idea of deforming equipotential layers continuously along the field lines from one layer to another. This results in exploiting ordinary differential equations to solve any boundary value problem that belongs to the class of Laplace's problem. Interpretation in terms of a geometric flow will provide us with stability considerations. The approach is demonstrated with several examples. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical solution of elastic inclusion problem using complex variable boundary integral equation

Based on a complex variable boundary integral equation (CVBIE) suggested previously, this paper provides a numerical solution for the elastic inclusion problem using CVBIE. A dissimilar elastic inclusion is embedded in the infinite matrix. The original problem is decomposed into two problems. One is an interior boundary value problem (BVP) for the elastic inclusion, while the other is an exterior BVP for the matrix with notch. Both problems are connected by conventional boundary integral equations (BIEs) in complex variables. After performing discretization for the coupled BIEs, the inverse matrix technique is suggested to solve the relevant algebraic equations. Based on the properties of some integral operators, three ways for the inverse matrix technique are suggested. Several numerical examples are carried out to prove the efficiency of the suggested method.     

A three-dimensional boundary determination problem in potential corrosion damage

In this paper we consider the identification of the geometric structure of the boundary of the solution domain for the three-dimensional Laplace equation. We investigate the determination of the shape of an unknown portion of the boundary of a solution domain from Cauchy data on the remaining portion of the boundary. This problem arises in the study of quantitative non-destructive evaluation of corrosion in materials in which boundary measurements of currents and voltages are used to determine the material loss caused by corrosion. The domain identification problem is considered as a variational problem to minimize a defect functional, which utilises some additional data on certain known parts of the boundary. A sequential quadratic programming (SQP) optimization algorithm is used in order to minimise the objective functional. The unknown boundary is parameterized using B-splines. The Laplace equation is discretised using the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). Numerical results are presented and discussed for several test examples.     

A comparison of different methods to solve inverse biharmonic boundary value problems

The Boundary Element Method (BEM) is applied to solve numerically some inverse boundary value problems associated to the biharmonic equation which involve over‐ and under‐specified boundary portions of the solution domain. The resulting ill‐conditioned system of linear equations is solved using the regularization and the minimal energy methods, followed by a further application of the Singular Value Decomposition Method (SVD). The regularization method incorporates a smoothing effect into the least squares functional, whilst the minimal energy method is based on minimizing the energy functional for the Laplace equation subject to the linear constraints generated by the BEM discretization of the biharmonic equation. The numerical results are compared with known analytical solutions and the stability of the numerical solution is investigated by introducing noise into the input data. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relaxation procedures for an iterative MFS algorithm for two-dimensional steady-state isotropic heat conduction Cauchy problems

We investigate two algorithms involving the relaxation of either the given Dirichlet data (boundary temperatures) or the prescribed Neumann data (normal heat fluxes) on the over-specified boundary in the case of the alternating iterative algorithm of Kozlov et al. [26] applied to two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction Cauchy problems, i.e. Cauchy problems for the Laplace equation. The two mixed, well-posed and direct problems corresponding to each iteration of the numerical procedure are solved using a meshless method, namely the method of fundamental solutions (MFS), in conjunction with the Tikhonov regularization method. For each direct problem considered, the optimal value of the regularization parameter is chosen according to the generalized cross-validation (GCV) criterion. The iterative MFS algorithms with relaxation are tested for Cauchy problems associated with the Laplace operator in various two-dimensional geometries to confirm the numerical convergence, stability, accuracy and computational efficiency of the method.     

A numerical treatment to the solution of quasiparabolic partial differential equations

This paper presents results obtained by the implementation of a hybrid Laplace transform finite element method to the solution of quasiparabolic problem. The present method removes the time derivatives from the quasiparabolic partial differential equation using the Laplace transform and then solves the associated equation with the finite element method. The numerical inverse of the Laplace transform is realized by solving linear overdetermined systems and a polynomial equation of the kth order. Test examples are used to show that the numerical solution is comparable to the exact solution of the initial-boundary value problem at the given grid points.     

A coupled complex boundary method for the Cauchy problem

Considered in this paper is a Cauchy problem governed by an elliptic partial differential equation. In the Cauchy problem, one wants to recover the unknown Neumann and Dirichlet data on a part of the boundary from the measured Neumann and Dirichlet data, usually contaminated with noise, on the remaining part of the boundary. The Cauchy problem is an inverse problem with severe ill-posedness. In this paper, a coupled complex boundary method (CCBM), originally proposed in [Cheng XL, Gong RF, Han W, et al. A novel coupled complex boundary method for solving inverse source problems. Inverse Prob. 2014;30:055002], is applied to solve the Cauchy problem stably. With the CCBM, all the data, including the known and unknown ones on the boundary are used in a complex Robin boundary on the whole boundary. As a result, the Cauchy problem is transferred into a complex Robin boundary problem of finding the unknown data such that the imaginary part of the solution equals zero in the domain. Then the Tikhonov regularization is applied to the resulting new formulation. Some theoretical analysis is performed on the CCBM-based Tikhonov regularization framework. Moreover, through the adjoint technique, a simple solver is proposed to compute the regularized solution. The finite-element method is used for the discretization. Numerical results are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Conjugate gradient method for the Robin inverse problem associated with the Laplace equation

This paper studies a non-linear inverse problem associated with the Laplace equation of identifying the Robin coefficient from boundary measurements. A variational formulation of the problem is suggested, thereby transforming it into an optimization problem. Mathematical properties relevant to its numerical computation are established. The optimization problem is solved using the conjugate gradient method in conjunction with the discrepancy principle, and the algorithm is implemented using the boundary element method. Numerical results are presented for several benchmark problems with both exact and noisy data, and the convergence of the algorithm with respect to mesh refinement and decreasing the amount of noise in the data is investigated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iterative computational identification of a space-wise dependent source in parabolic equation

Coefficient inverse problems related to identifying the right-hand side of an equation with use of additional information is of interest among inverse problems for partial differential equations. When considering non-stationary problems, tasks of recovering the dependence of the right-hand side on time and spatial variables can be treated as independent. These tasks relate to a class of linear inverse problems, which sufficiently simplifies their study. This work is devoted to finding the dependence of right-hand side of multidimensional parabolic equation on spatial variables using additional observations of the solution at the final point of time – the final overdetermination. More general problems are associated with some integral observation of the solution in time – the integral overdetermination. The first method of numerical solution of inverse problems is based on iterative solution of boundary value problem for time derivative with non-local acceleration. The second method is based on the known approach with iterative refinement of desired dependence of the right-hand side on spatial variables. Capabilities of proposed methods are illustrated by numerical examples for a two-dimensional problem of identifying the right-hand side of a parabolic equation. The standard finite-element approximation in space is used, whilst the time discretization is based on fully implicit two-level schemes.     

The boundary element method applied to the analysis of two-dimensional nonlinear sloshing problems

This paper deals with an application of the boundary element method to the analysis of nonlinear sloshing problems, namely nonlinear oscillations of a liquid in a container subjected to forced oscillations. First, the problem is formulated mathematically as a nonlinear initial-boundary value problem by the use of a governing differential equation and boundary conditions, assuming the fluid to be inviscid and incompressible and the flow to be irrotational. Next, the governing equation (Laplace equation) and boundary conditions, except the dynamic boundary condition on the free surface, are transformed into an integral equation by employing the Galerkin method. Two dynamic boundary condition is reduced to a weighted residual equation by employing the Galerkin method. Two equations thus obtained are discretized by the use of the finite element method spacewise and the finite difference method timewise. Collocation method is employed for the discretization of the integral equation. Due to the nonlinearity of the problem, the incremental method is used for the numerical analysis. Numerical results obtained by the present boundary element method are compared with those obtained by the conventional finite element method and also with existing analytical solutions of the nonlinear theory. Good agreements are obtained, and this indicates the availability of the boundary element method as a numerical technique for nonlinear free surface fluid problems.     

A novel mixed group preserving scheme for the inverse Cauchy problem of elliptic equations in annular domains

In this paper, the inverse Cauchy problems for elliptic equations, including the Laplace equation, the Poisson equation, and the Helmholtz equation, defined in annular domains are investigated. When the outer boundary of an annulus is imposed by overspecified boundary data, we seek unknown data in the inner boundary through a combination of the spring-damping regularization method (SDRM) and the mixed group-preserving scheme (MGPS). Several numerical examples are examined to show that the MGPS plus the SDRM can overcome the ill-posed behavior of this highly ill-conditioned inverse Cauchy problem. The presently proposed novel algorithm has good efficiency and stability against the disturbance from large random noise even up to 50%, and the computational cost of MGPS is very time saving.     

Numerical operational methods for time-dependent linear problems

A general and systematic discussion on the use of the operational method of Laplace transform for numerically solving complex time-dependent linear problems is presented. Application of Laplace transform with respect to time on the governing differential equations as well as the boundary and initial conditions of the problem reduces it to one independent of time, which is solved in the transform domain by any convenient numerical technique, such as the finite element method, the finite difference method or the boundary integral equation method. Finally, the time domain solution is obtained by a numerical inversion of the transformed solution. Eight existing methods of numerical inversion of the Laplace transform are systematically discussed with respect to their use, range of applicability, accuracy and computational efficiency on the basis of some framework vibration problems. Other applications of the Laplace transform method in conjunction with the finite element method or the boundary integral equation method in the areas of earthquake dynamic response of frameworks, thermaliy induced beam vibrations, forced vibrations of cylindrical shells, dynamic stress concentrations around holes in plates and viscoelastic stress analysis are also briefly described to demonstrate the generality and advantages of the method against other known methods.     

ON THE CHOICE OF A DERIVATIVE BOUNDARY ELEMENT FORMULATION USING HERMITE INTERPOLATION

This paper reports on some problems that can arise with the use of regularized derivative boundary integral equations. It concentrates on developing a formulation for the simple Laplace equation using a cubic Hermite interpolation and shows how certain combinations of derivative and conventional boundary integral equations can result in a solution scheme severely lacking in stability. With some simple two- and three-dimensional geometries, the derivative equations on their own do not provide enough information to solve a Dirichlet problem. Even combinations of the conventional and derivative equations fail for some simple geometries. We conclude that the only consistently successful combination is that of the conventional equation with the tangential derivative equation, which showed cubic convergence of results with mesh refinement. Numerical results are presented for this scheme in both two and three dimensions.     

Numerical solutions of boundary detection problems using modified collocation Trefftz method and exponentially convergent scalar homotopy algorithm

In this paper, the boundary detection problem, which is governed by the Laplace equation, is analyzed by the modified collocation Trefftz method (MCTM) and the exponentially convergent scalar homotopy algorithm (ECSHA). In the boundary detection problem, the Cauchy data is given on part of the boundary and the Dirichlet boundary condition on the other part of the boundary, whose spatial position is unknown a priori. By adopting the MCTM, which is meshless and integral-free, the numerical solution is expressed by a linear combination of the T-complete functions of the Laplace equation. The use of a characteristic length in MCTM can stabilize the numerical procedure and ensure highly accurate solutions. Since the coefficients of MCTM and the position of part of the boundary are unknown, to collocate the boundary conditions will yield a system of nonlinear algebraic equations; the ECSHA, which is exponentially convergent, is adopted to solve the system of nonlinear algebraic equations. Several numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the ability and accuracy of the proposed meshless scheme. In addition, the consistency of the proposed scheme is validated by adding noise into the boundary conditions.     

The dual reciprocity boundary element method for solving Cauchy problems associated to the Poisson equation

This paper presents an application of the dual reciprocity method (DRM) to a class of inverse problems governed by the Poisson equation. Here the term inverse refers to the fact that the boundary conditions are not fully specified, i.e. they are not known for the entire boundary of the solution domain. In order to investigate the ability of the DRM to reconstruct the unknown boundary conditions using overspecified conditions on the accessible part of the boundary we consider some test problems involving circular, annular and square domains. Due to the ill-posed nature of the problem, i.e. the instabilities in the solution of these problems, the DRM is combined with the Tikhonov regularization method.     

Conjugate Gradient Method for Estimation of Robin Coefficients

We consider a Robin inverse problem associated with the Laplace equation, which is a severely ill-posed and nonlinear. We formulate the problem as a boundary integral equation, and introduce a functional of the Robin coefficient as a regularisation term. A conjugate gradient method is proposed for solving the consequent regularised nonlinear least squares problem. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.