BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHODS IN DYNAMIC INTERACTION PROBLEMS

Vibrations and often also propagating waves are encountered in several engineering problems. For their analysis, especially for the analysis of dynamic interaction effects, the Boundary Element Method (BEM) has shown to be very appropriate. The method has the great advantage of r equiring the discretization only on the surface of considered homogene ous domains. Hence, it is very easy to study effects due to changes of the domain shape and, especially, of problems involving infinite regi ons. Moreover, it automatically takes into account the effect of radia tion to infinity. In this paper, after a short review of the relevant BEM history, using the direct as well as the indirect method time depe ndent formulations are presented, while, due to the lack of space, onl y some references are given to the corresponding frequency domain proc edures. The wide applicability of the method may also be seen from the referenced literature.