This volume presents and discusses recent advances in boundary element methods and their solid mechanics applications. It illustrates these methods in their latest forms, developed during the last five to ten years, and demonstrates their advantages in solving a wide range of solid mechanics problems.

This volume, dedicated to Professor Dimitri Beskos, contains contributions from leading researchers in Europe, the USA, Japan and elsewhere, and addresses the needs of the computational mechanics research community in terms of timely information on boundary integral equation-based methods and techniques applied to a variety of fields. The contributors are well-known scientists, who also happen to be friends, collaborators as past students of Dimitri Beskos. Dimitri is one the BEM pioneers who started his career at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, USA, in the 1970s and is now with the University of Patras in Patras, Greece. The book is essentially a collection of both original and review articles on contemporary Boundary Element Methods (BEM) as well as on the newer Mesh Reduction Methods (MRM), covering a variety of research topics. Close to forty contributions compose an over-500 page volume that is rich in detail and wide in terms of breadth of coverage of the subject of integral equation formulations and solutions in both solid and fluid mechanics.

The IUTAM Symposium on Advanced Boundary Element Methods brought together both established and current researchers in the broad context of applications of BEM technology. The goal of the Symposium was to provide both a formal and an informal forum for the interchange of ideas and the stimulation of new research directions.

This book is devoted to the mathematical analysis of the numerical solution of boundary integral equations treating boundary value, transmission and contact problems arising in elasticity, acoustic and electromagnetic scattering. It serves as the mathematical foundation of the boundary element methods (BEM) both for static and dynamic problems. The book presents a systematic approach to the variational methods for boundary integral equations including the treatment with variational inequalities for contact problems. It also features adaptive BEM, hp-version BEM, coupling of finite and boundary element methods – efficient computational tools that have become extremely popular in applications. Familiarizing readers with tools like Mellin transformation and pseudodifferential operators as well as convex and nonsmooth analysis for variational inequalities, it concisely presents efficient, state-of-the-art boundary element approximations and points to up-to-date research. The authors are well known for their fundamental work on boundary elements and related topics, and this book is a major contribution to the modern theory of the BEM (especially for error controlled adaptive methods and for unilateral contact and dynamic problems) and is a valuable resource for applied mathematicians, engineers, scientists and graduate students.

In the dynamic digital age, the widespread use of computers has transformed engineering and science. A realistic and successful solution of an engineering problem usually begins with an accurate physical model of the problem and a proper understanding of the assumptions employed. With computers and appropriate software we can model and analyze complex physical systems and problems. However, efficient and accurate use of numerical results obtained from computer programs requires considerable background and advanced working knowledge to avoid blunders and the blind acceptance of computer results. This book provides the background and knowledge necessary to avoid these pitfalls, especially the most commonly used numerical methods employed in the solution of physical problems. It offers an in-depth presentation of the numerical methods for scales from nano to macro in nine self-contained chapters with extensive problems and up-to-date references, covering: Trends and new developments in simulation and computation Weighted residuals methods Finite difference methods Finite element methods Finite strip/layer/prism methods Boundary element methods Meshless methods Molecular dynamics Multiphysics problems Multiscale methods

This book focuses on the analysis of manufacturing processes and the integration of this analysis into the design cycle. Uniquely, the boundary element method (BEM) is the computational model of choice. This versatile and powerful method has undergone extensive development during the past two decades and has been applied to virtually all areas of engineering mechanics as well as to other fields. Among topics covered are BEM infrastructure, design sensitivity analysis, and detailed discussions of a broad range of manufacturing processes including forming, solidification, machining, and ceramic grinding.

During the last two decades the boundary element method has experienced a remarkable evolution. Contemporary concepts and techniques leading to the advancements of capabilities and understanding of the mathematical and computational aspects of the method in mechanics are presented. The special emphasis on theoretical and numerical issues, as well as new formulations and approaches for special and important fields of solid and fluid mechanics are considered. Several important and new mathematical aspects are presented: singularity and hypersingular formulations, regularity, errors and error estimators, adaptive methods, Galerkin formulations, coupling of BEM-FEM and non-deterministic (stochastic and fuzzy) BEM formulations. Novel developments and applications of the boundary element method in various fields of mechanics of solids and fluids are considered: heat conduction, diffusion and radiation, non-linear problems, dynamics and time-depending problems, fracture mechanics, thermoelasticity and poroelasticity, aerodynamics and acoustics, contact problems, biomechanics, optimization and sensitivity analysis problems, ill posed and inverse problems, and identification problems.

The editors have published a select group of full length papers on boundary element analysis (BEA) photographed from camera ready manuscripts. The articles have been prepared by some of the most distinguished and prolific individuals in this field. More than half of these articles have been submitted by authors that participated in an International Forum on Boundary Element Methods, in Melbourne Australia, in the Summer of 1991. However, this volume is not a conference proceedings, as these authors have expanded their accounts to chapter length, and/or have tailored their expositions more toward the style employed in archival journal publications. The authors that did not participate in the International Forum have also adhered to the above mentioned philosophy. This work contains a definitive representation of the significant capabilities and applications currently available or under investigation that fall under the general category of advanced boundary element analysis. With treatments of mechanical, thermal, fluid, and electromagnetic phenomena, this book should thus be of value to graduate students, practitioners, and researchers in engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences wishing to obtain a broader perspective or remain current in these important areas of computational simulation.

Englischer Text: The volume contains 21 contributions to the 12th GAMM-Seminar (Kiel, January 1996), which was devoted to advanced algorithms in the field of boundary element methods. The topics were e. g. cubature techniques, multiscale methods, hp-discretisation, error estimation, domain decomposition, and programm design. Deutscher Text: Der Band enthält die 21 Beiträge zum 12. GAMM-Seminar (Kiel, Jaunuar 1996), welches sich mit fortgeschrittenen Algorithmen auf dem Gebiet der Randwertprobleme befaßte.