A dual-level method of fundamental solutions for three-dimensional exterior high frequency acoustic problems

Physical essence of the fictitious boundary of the method of fundamental solutions has been a mystery for a long time. In this study, we attempt to explain the reason why fictitious boundary has such a dramatic effect on numerical results. The influence law of the fictitious boundary on numerical results is revealed. Based on this understanding, a dual-level method of fundamental solutions with self-adaptive adjustment coefficients is proposed. The competitive attributes of the method are that it inherits the high numerical efficiency of the method of fundamental solutions, and it improves numerical stability significantly. The effect of the fictitious boundary on numerical results is eliminated by introducing the concept of equivalent slope. It should be noted that the dual-level method of fundamental solutions can simulate exterior high frequency acoustic problems under the lowest sampling frequency allowed by the Shannon's sampling theorem. Numerical experiment with up to non-dimensional wavenumber of 600 has successfully been conducted on a single laptop when one uses 100,000 degrees of freedom.     

The Trefftz method using fundamental solutions for biharmonic equations

In this paper, the Trefftz method of fundamental solution (FS), called the method of fundamental solution (MFS), is used for biharmonic equations. The bounds of errors are derived for the MFS with Almansi’s fundamental solutions (denoted as the MAFS) in bounded simply connected domains. The exponential and polynomial convergence rates are obtained from highly and finitely smooth solutions, respectively. The stability analysis of the MAFS is also made for circular domains. Numerical experiments are carried out for both smooth and singularity problems. The numerical results coincide with the theoretical analysis made. When the particular solutions satisfying the biharmonic equation can be found, the method of particular solutions (MPS) is always superior to the MFS and the MAFS, based on numerical examples. However, if such singular particular solutions near the singular points do not exist, the local refinement of collocation nodes and the greedy adaptive techniques can be used for seeking better source points. Based on the computed results, the MFS using the greedy adaptive techniques may provide more accurate solutions for singularity problems. Moreover, the numerical solutions by the MAFS with Almansi’s FS are slightly better in accuracy and stability than those by the traditional MFS. Hence, the MAFS with the AFS is recommended for biharmonic equations due to its simplicity.     

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.     

Numerical calculation of eigensolutions of 3D shapes using the method of fundamental solutions

In this work, we study the application of the Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS) for the calculation of eigenfrequencies and eigenmodes in two and three‐dimensional domains. We address some mathematical results about properties of the single layer operator related to the eigenfrequencies. Moreover, we propose algorithms for the distribution of the collocation and source points of the MFS in three‐dimensional domains which is an extension of the choices considered by Alves and Antunes (CMC 2(2005), 251–266) for the two‐dimensional case. Also the application of the Plane Waves Method is investigated. Several examples with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions are considered to illustrate the performance of the proposed methods. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 27: 1525–1550, 2011     

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.     

The method of fundamental solutions for Signorini problems

We investigate the use of method of fundamental solutions (MFS)for the numerical solution of Signorini boundary value problems.The MFS is an ideal candidate for solving such problems becauseinequality conditions alternating at unknown points of the boundarycan be incorporated naturally into the least-squares minimizationscheme associated with the MFS. To demonstrate its efficiency,we apply the method to two Signorini problems. The first isa groundwater flow problem related to percolation in gentlysloping beaches, and the second is an electropainting application.For both problems, the results are in close agreement with previouslyreported numerical solutions.     

A well-conditioned method of fundamental solutions for Laplace equation

Numerical Algorithms - The method of fundamental solutions (MFS) is a numerical method for solving boundary value problems involving linear partial differential equations. It is well-known that it...     

The method of fundamental solutions for linear diffusion-reaction equations

The paper presents an extension of the solution procedure based on the method of fundamental solutions proposed earlier in the literature for solving linear diffusion reaction equations in nonregular geometries in two and three dimensions. The solution procedure utilizes the fundamental solution to the problem along with boundary collocation to result in a grid-free numerical scheme. A new heuristic for source location is utilized along with orthogonal collocation in nonsmooth domains to improve the accuracy of the solution. The efficacy of the solution procedure is demonstrated for a variety of problems in nonregular simply and multiply connected geometries with nonuniform boundary conditions.     

Some variants of the method of fundamental solutions: regularization using radial and nearly radial basis functions

The method of fundamental solutions and some versions applied to mixed boundary value problems are considered. Several strategies are outlined to avoid the problems due to the singularity of the fundamental solutions: the use of higher order fundamental solutions, and the use of nearly fundamental solutions and special fundamental solutions concentrated on lines instead of points. The errors of the approximations as well as the problem of ill-conditioned matrices are illustrated via numerical examples.     

A method of fundamental solutions for the one-dimensional inverse Stefan problem

We investigate an application of the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) to the one-dimensional inverse Stefan problem for the heat equation by extending the MFS proposed in [5] for the one-dimensional direct Stefan problem. The sources are placed outside the space domain of interest and in the time interval (?T, T). Theoretical properties of the method, as well as numerical investigations, are included, showing that accurate and stable results can be obtained efficiently with small computational cost.     

Computation of fundamental solutions of the boundary element method for shallow shells

A method to evaluate the fundamental solutions of shallow shells by the use of plane wave decomposition is developed and an effective boundary element scheme for the analysis of elastic shallow shells is presented.     

The method of fundamental solutions for problems in potential flow

The method of fundamental solutions is a form of indirect boundary integral equation method. Its distinctive feature is adaptivity, gained through the use of an auxiliary boundary that is chosen automatically by a least squares procedure. The paper demonstrates the application of the method to problems in potential flow. A further advantage of the method is that the velocity field can be computed easily and accurately by a direct evaluation procedure.     

The method of fundamental solutions for elliptic boundary value problems

The aim of this paper is to describe the development of the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) and related methods over the last three decades. Several applications of MFS-type methods are presented. Techniques by which such methods are extended to certain classes of non-trivial problems and adapted for the solution of inhomogeneous problems are also outlined. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Determination of acoustic parameters in flow fields using OpenFOAM

In the present paper a Computational Aero Acoustics approach based on Lighthill's and Curle's Acoustic Analogies was implemented in OpenFOAM 2.1.1. The novel developed OpenFOAM application solvers acousticFoam and acousticRhoFoam can be used for transient incompressible and compressible simulations respectively. The CAA approach takes High Performance Computing environment into account and realize the computation of flow and acoustic fields within the acoustical near field on one mesh only. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On a numerical solution of the Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation by the fundamental solutions method

We discuss a numerical method to solve a Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation in the two-dimensional annular domain. We consider the case that the Cauchy data is given on an arc. We develop an approximation method based of the fundamental solutions method using the least squares method with Tikhonov regularization. The effectiveness of our method is examined by a numerical experiment. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Search for feasible solutions by interior point algorithms

A family of interior point algorithms for linear programming problems is considered. In these algorithms, entering the feasible solution region of the original problem is presented as an optimization process of an extended problem. This extension is performed by adding a new variable. The main objective of the paper is a theoretical justification of the procedure of entering the feasible region of the original problem under the assumption of non-degeneracy of the extended problem. Specifically, it is proved that under consistent constraints of the original problemthe procedure leads to a relative interior point of the feasible region.     

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     

The vector integral-equation method for computing three-dimensional magnetic fields

The vector integral-equation method for computing three-dimensional, quasistatic magnetic fields is developed with a view to its application to configurations of the type that occur in magnetic recording. Starting from appropriate Green-type vector integral relations for the magnetic-field quantities, the relevant integral equations are derived. Their numerical handling is briefly discussed.     

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.