Summary

Boundary Element Methods (BEM) have been successfully used in a variety of areas in engineering science, such as potential theory, elastostatics, elastodynamics, elastoplasticity, fracture, fluid mechanics, heat conduction, acoustics, electromagnetism and soil- or fluid-structure interaction. The most important topics in BEM are described here by well-known researchers in the field. It is a handbook characterized by a combination of tutorial and state-of-the-art aspects. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the fundamentals of the BEM, its history, advantages and disadvantages and future developments. In the second chapter, the potential theory is used to illustrate the mathematical and numerical aspects of the method. Further illustration is provided in the third chapter which deals with two- and three-dimensional elastostatics. Chapters 4 and 5 treat two- and three-dimensional elastodynamics (including viscoelasticity) from a general and a specific point of view, respectively. Nonlinear solid mechanics (including material and geometric nonlinearities) is taken up in the sixth chapter, while two- and three-dimensional fracture analysis is treated in the seventh chapter.