A new a posteriori error estimator in adaptive direct boundary element methods: the Dirichlet problem

In this paper we propose a new a posteriori error estimator for a boundary element solution related to a Dirichlet problem with a second order elliptic partial differential operator. The method is based on an approximate solution of a boundary integral equation of the second kind by a Neumann series to estimate the error of a previously computed boundary element solution. For this one may use an arbitrary boundary element method, for example, a Galerkin, collocation or qualocation scheme, to solve an appropriate boundary integral equation. Due to the approximate solution of the error equation the proposed estimator provides high accuracy. A numerical example supports the theoretical results. Received: June 1999 / Accepted: September 1999