A meshless method for nonhomogeneous polyharmonic problems using method of fundamental solution coupled with quasi-interpolation technique

This paper proposes a meshless method based on coupling the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) with quasi-interpolation for the solution of nonhomogeneous polyharmonic problems. The original problems are transformed to homogeneous problems by subtracting a particular solution of the governing differential equation. The particular solution is approximated by quasi-interpolation and the corresponding homogeneous problem is solved using the MFS. By applying quasi-interpolation, problems connected with interpolation can be avoided. The error analysis and convergence study of this meshless method are given for solving the boundary value problems of nonhomogeneous harmonic and biharmonic equations. Numerical examples are also presented to show the efficiency of the method.     

Treatment of singularities in the method of fundamental solutions for two-dimensional Helmholtz-type equations

We investigate a meshless method for the accurate and non-oscillatory solution of problems associated with two-dimensional Helmholtz-type equations in the presence of boundary singularities. The governing equation and boundary conditions are approximated by the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). It is well known that the existence of boundary singularities affects adversely the accuracy and convergence of standard numerical methods. The solutions to such problems and/or their corresponding derivatives may have unbounded values in the vicinity of the singularity. This difficulty is overcome by subtracting from the original MFS solution the corresponding singular functions, without an appreciable increase in the computational effort and at the same time keeping the same MFS approximation. Four examples for both the Helmholtz and the modified Helmholtz equations are carefully investigated and the numerical results presented show an excellent performance of the approach developed.     

The method of fundamental solutions with eigenfunction expansion method for nonhomogeneous diffusion equation

In this article we describe a numerical method to solve a nonhomogeneous diffusion equation with arbitrary geometry by combining the method of fundamental solutions (MFS), the method of particular solutions (MPS), and the eigenfunction expansion method (EEM). This forms a meshless numerical scheme of the MFS‐MPS‐EEM model to solve nonhomogeneous diffusion equations with time‐independent source terms and boundary conditions for any time and any shape. Nonhomogeneous diffusion equation with complex domain can be separated into a Poisson equation and a homogeneous diffusion equation using this model. The Poisson equation is solved by the MFS‐MPS model, in which the compactly supported radial basis functions are adopted for the MPS. On the other hand, utilizing the EEM the diffusion equation is first translated to a Helmholtz equation, which is then solved by the MFS together with the technique of the singular value decomposition (SVD). Since the present meshless method does not need mesh generation, nodal connectivity, or numerical integration, the computational effort and memory storage required are minimal as compared with other numerical schemes. Test results for two 2D diffusion problems show good comparability with the analytical solutions. The proposed algorithm is then extended to solve a problem with irregular domain and the results compare very well with solutions of a finite element scheme. Therefore, the present scheme has been proved to be very promising as a meshfree numerical method to solve nonhomogeneous diffusion equations with time‐independent source terms of any time frame, and for any arbitrary geometry. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2006     

Combining MFS and PGD methods to solve transient heat equation

We propose in this article a numerical algorithm based on the combination of the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) and the proper generalized decomposition technique (PGD) to solve time‐dependent heat equation. The MFS is considered as a truly meshless technique well adapted for a wide range of physical problems and the PGD approach can be considered as a reduction technique based on the separated representation of the variable functions. The proposed study relates to a separation between the spatial and temporal coordinates. To show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, several examples are presented and compared to the reference results.     

A moving pseudo‐boundary method of fundamental solutions for void detection

We propose a new moving pseudo‐boundary method of fundamental solutions (MFS) for the determination of the boundary of a void. This problem can be modeled as an inverse boundary value problem for harmonic functions. The algorithm for imaging the interior of the medium also makes use of radial polar parametrization of the unknown void shape in two dimensions. The center of this radial polar parametrization is considered to be unknown. We also include the contraction and dilation factors to be part of the unknowns in the resulting nonlinear least‐squares problem. This approach addresses the major problem of locating the pseudo‐boundary in the MFS in a natural way, because the inverse problem in question is nonlinear anyway. The feasibility of this new method is illustrated by several numerical examples. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013     

Inverse shape and surface heat transfer coefficient identification

In this paper, an inverse geometric problem for the modified Helmholtz equation arising in heat conduction in a fin is considered. This problem which consists of determining an unknown inner boundary of an annular domain and possibly its surface heat transfer coefficient from one or two pairs of boundary Cauchy data (boundary temperature and heat flux) is solved numerically using the meshless method of fundamental solutions (MFS). A nonlinear unconstrained minimisation of the objective function is regularised when noise is added to the input boundary data. The stability of the numerical results is investigated for several test examples with respect to noise in the input data and various values of the regularisation parameters.     

Efficient implementation of the MFS: The three scenarios

In this study we investigate the approximation of the solutions of harmonic problems subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions by the Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS). In particular, we study the application of the MFS to Dirichlet problems in a disk. The MFS discretization yields systems which possess special features which can be exploited by using Fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based techniques. We describe three possible formulations related to the ratio of boundary points to sources, namely, when the number of boundary points is equal, larger and smaller than the number of sources. We also present some numerical experiments and provide an efficient MATLAB implementation of the resulting algorithms.     

自适应快速多极正则化无网格法求解大规模三维位势问题

正则化无网格法（regularized meshless method, RMM）是一种新的边界型无网格数值离散方法．该方法克服了近年来引起广泛关注的基本解方法（method of fundamental solutions, MFS）的虚假边界缺陷,继承了其无网格、无数值积分、易实施等优点．另一方面,RMM方法同MFS方法的插值方程都涉及非对称稠密系数矩阵,运用常规代数方程的迭代法求解时都要求O(N2)量级的乘法计算量和存储量．随着问题自由度的增加,该方法的计算量增加极快,效率较低,一般难以计算大规模问题．为了克服这个缺点,利用对角形式的快速多级算法（fast multipole method, FMM）来加速RMM方法,发展了快速多级正则化无网格法（fast multipole regularized mesheless method, FM-RMM）．该方法无需数值积分并且具有O(N)量级的计算量和存储量,可有效地求解大规模工程问题．数值算例表明,FM-RMM算法可成功在内存为4GB的Core(TM)Ⅱ台式机上求解高达百万级自由度的三维位势问题．     

Solving the 3D Laplace equation by meshless collocation via harmonic kernels

This paper solves the Laplace equation Δu?=?0 on domains Ω????³ by meshless collocation on scattered points of the boundary $\partial\Omega$ . Due to the use of new positive definite kernels K(x, y) which are harmonic in both arguments and have no singularities for x?=?y, one can directly interpolate on the boundary, and there is no artificial boundary needed as in the Method of Fundamental Solutions. In contrast to many other techniques, e.g. the Boundary Point Method or the Method of Fundamental Solutions, we provide a solid and comprehensive mathematical foundation which includes error bounds and works for general star-shaped domains. The convergence rates depend only on the smoothness of the domain and the boundary data. Some numerical examples are included.     

Adaptive meshless Galerkin boundary node methods for hypersingular integral equations

Adaptive refinement techniques are developed in this paper for the meshless Galerkin boundary node method for hypersingular boundary integral equations. Two types of error estimators are derived. One is a perturbation error estimator that is formulated based on the difference between numerical solutions obtained using two consecutive nodal arrangements. The other is a projection error estimator that is formulated based on the difference between the numerical solution itself and its projection. These error estimators are proven to have an upper and a lower bound by the constant multiples of the exact error in the energy norm. A localization scheme is presented to accomodate the non-local property of hypersingular integral operators for the needed computable local error indicators. The convergence of the adaptive meshless techniques is verified theoretically. To confirm the theoretical results and to show the efficiency of the adaptive techniques, numerical examples in 2D and 3D with high singularities are provided.     

Convergence order estimates of meshless collocation methods using radial basis functions

We study meshless collocation methods using radial basis functions to approximate regular solutions of systems of equations with linear differential or integral operators. Our method can be interpreted as one of the emerging meshless methods, cf. T. Belytschko et al. (1996). Its range of application is not confined to elliptic problems. However, the application to the boundary value problem for an elliptic operator, connected with an integral equation, is given as an example. Although the method has been used for special cases for about ten years, cf. E.J. Kansa (1990), there are no error bounds known. We put the main emphasis on detailed proofs of such error bounds, following the general outline described in C. Franke and R. Schaback (preprint). This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Analysis of a meshless method for the time fractional diffusion-wave equation

In this paper a numerical technique is proposed for solving the time fractional diffusion-wave equation. We obtain a time discrete scheme based on finite difference formula. Then, we prove that the time discrete scheme is unconditionally stable and convergent using the energy method and the convergence order of the time discrete scheme is \(\mathcal {O}(\tau ^{3-\alpha })\). Firstly, we change the main problem based on Dirichlet boundary condition to a new problem based on Robin boundary condition and then, we consider a semi-discrete scheme with Robin boundary condition and show when \(\beta \rightarrow +\infty \) solution of the main semi-discrete problem with Dirichlet boundary condition is convergent to the solution of the new semi-discrete problem with Robin boundary condition. We consider the new semi-discrete problem with Robin boundary condition and use the meshless Galerkin method to approximate the spatial derivatives. Finally, we obtain an error bound for the new problem. We prove that convergence order of the numerical scheme based on Galekin meshless is \(\mathcal {O}(h)\). In the considered method the appeared integrals are approximated using Gauss Legendre quadrature formula. The main aim of the current paper is to obtain an error estimate for the meshless Galerkin method based on the radial basis functions. Numerical examples confirm the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed scheme.     

Reducing the ill conditioning in the method of fundamental solutions

The method of fundamental solutions (MFS) is a meshless method for solving boundary value problems with some partial differential equations. It allows to obtain highly accurate approximations for the solutions assuming that they are smooth enough, even with small matrices. As a counterpart, the (dense) matrices involved are often ill-conditioned which is related to the well known uncertainty principle stating that it is impossible to have high accuracy and good conditioning at the same time. In this work, we propose a technique to reduce the ill conditioning in the MFS, assuming that the source points are placed on a circumference of radius R. The idea is to apply a suitable change of basis that provides new basis functions that span the same space as the MFS’s, but are much better conditioned. In the particular case of circular domains, the algorithm allows to obtain errors close to machine precision, with condition numbers of order O(1), independently of the number of points sources and R.     

A matrix decomposition MFS algorithm for axisymmetric biharmonic problems

We consider the approximate solution of axisymmetric biharmonic problems using a boundary-type meshless method, the Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS) with fixed singularities and boundary collocation. For such problems, the coefficient matrix of the linear system defining the approximate solution has a block circulant structure. This structure is exploited to formulate a matrix decomposition method employing fast Fourier transforms for the efficient solution of the system. The results of several numerical examples are presented. AMS subject classification 65N38, 65F30, 65T50, 65Y99     

A meshless method for one-dimensional Stefan problems

The paper presents a new meshless numerical technique for solving one-dimensional problems with moving boundaries including the Stefan problems. The technique presented is based on the use of the delta-shaped functions and the method of approximate fundamental solutions (MAFS) firstly suggested for solving elliptic problems and for heat equations in domains with fixed boundaries. The numerical examples are presented and the results are compared with analytical solutions. The comparison shows that the method presented provides a very high precision in determining the position of the moving boundary even for a region that initially has zero thickness.     

Numerical experiments on optimal shape parameters for radial basis functions

A numerical investigation on a technique for choosing an optimal shape parameter is proposed. Radial basis functions (RBFs) and their derivatives are used as interpolants in the asymmetric collocation radial basis method, for solving systems of partial differential equations. The shape parameter c in RBFs plays a major role in obtaining high quality solutions for boundary value problems. As c is a user defined value, inexperienced users may compromise the quality of the solution, often a problem of this meshless method. Here we propose a statistical technique to choose the shape parameter in radial basis functions. We use a cross‐validation technique suggested by Rippa 6 for interpolation problems to find a cost function Cost(c) that ideally has the same behavior as an error function. If that is the case, the parameter c that minimizes the cost function will be an optimal shape parameter, in the sense that it minimizes the error function. The form of the cost and error functions are analized for several examples, and for most cases the two functions have a similar behavior. The technique produced very accurate results, even with a small number of points and irregular grids. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

Infinite domain potential problems by a new formulation of singular boundary method

This study proposes a new formulation of singular boundary method (SBM) and documents the first attempt to apply this new method to infinite domain potential problems. The essential issue in the SBM-based methods is to evaluate the origin intensity factor. This paper derives a new regularization technique to evaluate the origin intensity factor on the Neumann boundary condition without the need of sample solution and nodes as in the traditional SBM. We also modify the inverse interpolation technique in the traditional SBM to get rid of the perplexing sample nodes in the calculation of the origin intensity factor on the Dirichlet boundary condition. It is noted that this new SBM retains all merits of the traditional SBM being truly meshless, free of integration, mathematically simple, and easy-to-program without the requirement of a fictitious boundary as in the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). We examine the new SBM by the four benchmark infinite domain problems to verify its applicability, stability, and accuracy.     

Meshless methods for solving Dirichlet boundary optimal control problems governed by elliptic PDEs

In this paper, two meshless schemes are proposed for solving Dirichlet boundary optimal control problems governed by elliptic equations. The first scheme uses radial basis function collocation method (RBF-CM) for both state equation and adjoint state equation, while the second scheme employs the method of fundamental solution (MFS) for the state equation when it has a zero source term, and RBF-CM for the adjoint state equation. Numerical examples are provided to validate the efficiency of the proposed schemes.     

A study on the method of fundamental solutions using an image concept

In this paper, both analytical and semi-analytical solutions for Green’s functions are obtained by using the image method which can be seen as a special case of method of fundamental solutions (MFS). The image method is employed to solve the Green’s function for the annular, eccentric and half-plane Laplace problems. In addition, an analytical solution is derived for the fixed-free annular case. For the half-plane problem with a circular hole and an eccentric annulus, semi-analytical solutions are both obtained by using the image concept after determining the strengths of two frozen image points and a free constant by matching boundary conditions. It is found that two frozen images terminated at the two focuses in the bipolar coordinates for the problems with two circular boundaries. A boundary value problem of an eccentric annulus without sources is also considered. Error distribution is plotted after comparing with the analytical solution derived by Lebedev et al. using the bipolar coordinates. The optimal locations for the source distribution in the MFS are also examined by using the image concept. It is observed that we should locate singularities on the two focuses to obtain better results in the MFS. Besides, whether the free constant is required or not in the MFS is also studied. The results are compared well with the analytical solutions.     

A Trefftz/MFS mixed-type method to solve the Cauchy problem of the Laplace equation

By using the multiple-scale Trefftz method (MSTM) to solve the Cauchy problem of the Laplace equation in an arbitrary bounded domain, we may lose the accuracy several orders when the noise being imposed on the specified Cauchy data is quite large. In addition to the linear equations obtained from the MSTM, the fundamental solutions play as the test functions being inserted into a derived boundary integral equation. Therefore, after merely supplementing a few linear equations in the mixed-type method (MTM), which is a well organized combination of the Trefftz method and the method of fundamental solutions (MFS), we can improve the ill-conditioned behavior of the linear equations system and hence increase the accuracy of the solution for the Cauchy problem significantly, as explored by two numerical examples.