An improved boundary-integral equation method for three dimensional elastic stress analysis

An improved numerical implementation of the boundary-integral equation method for three dimensional stress analysis is reported. The new implementation models the boundary data as piecewise-linear variations over the boundary segments. As with all boundary-integral equation models, a system of equations relating unknown boundary data to known boundary data is obtained. The new implementation is described mathematically and verified on several simple test problems. In addition the method is used to study a finite fracture specimen used in material testing. The numerical results and computer run times are compared to an earlier version of the boundary-integral equation method. The results show significant improvement in accuracy for comparable run times for most problems.