A New Boundary Element Method Formulation for Linear Elasticity

Abstract

A new boundary element formulation for linear elasticity problems is presented in this paper. The standard formulation for planar problems uses two kernels — one of which is logarithmic singular and the other is 1/r singular, where r is the distance between a source and a field point. The new formulation avoids the use of the strongly singular kernel so that both kernels are now only logarithmic singular. The new formulation has several potential advantages over the standard one, the most significant of which is that it delivers stresses accurately at internal points which are extremely close to the boundary of a body. Numerical results for sample problems, from each of the formulations, are presented and compared here.