THE USE OF THE METHOD OF MOMENTS WITH FINITE-DIFFERENCE OPERATOR IN ACOUSTICS

Weighted residual methods are frequently used for solving a variety of problems in electromagnetics, solid mechanics, weather prediction, an d fluid mechanics. Amidst these weighted residual methods, the electro magnetics research community frequently uses a technique known as the method of moments (MM). MM can be used to systematically form the whol e set of expansion functions needed to construct the approximate solut ion of the problem based on one given basis function. This property of the method of moments can be exploited to solve acoustic field equati ons in irregular domains. The method of moments with finite difference operator approximation is explored in this paper. As illustrations of the applications of this method, both one- and two-dimensional acoust ic problems are solved in this paper. These applications help to highl ight the potential of the method of moments. (C) 1996 Acoustical Socie ty of America.