2nd Reading April 23, 2013 16:39 WSPC/0219-8762 196-IJCM 1350037 International Journal of Computational Methods Vol. 10, No. 6 (2013) 1350037 (91 pages) c World Scientific Publishing Company DOI: 10.1142/S0219876213500370 THE BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD SUBRATA MUKHERJEE∗ Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Kimball Hall, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
[email protected] YIJUN LIU Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA Received 15 September 2010 Accepted 25 September 2011 Published 9 April 2013 The boundary element method (BEM), along with the finite element and finite difference methods, is commonly used to carry out numerical simulations in a wide variety of subjects in science and engineering. The BEM, rooted in classical mathematics of integral equations, started becoming a useful computational tool around 50 years ago. Many researchers have worked on computational aspects of this method during this time. This paper presents an overview of the BEM and related methods. It has three sec- tions. The first, relatively short section, presents the governing equations for classical applications of the BEM in potential theory, linear elasticity and acoustics. The second describes specialized applications in bodies with thin features including micro-electro- mechanical systems (MEMS). The final section addresses current research. It has three subsections that present the boundary contour, boundary node and fast multipole meth- ods (BCM, BNM and FMM), respectively. Several numerical examples are included in the second and third sections of this paper. Keywords: Boundary integral equation; boundary element method; boundary contour method; boundary node method; fast multipole method; potential theory; elasticity; acoustics.