Adaptive and Dynamic Analysis Using the Boundary Element Method

The boundary element method (BEM) has become established as a powerful alternative to finite element modeling for a variety of automotive engineering solutions. In particular, it has been effective in the static analysis of powertrain components and also for the acoustic analysis of both the passenger compartment and the air-space surrounding a vehicle.

While the technique offers a substantial improvement in case of use and modeling times for many problems, especially those described above, and also produces highly accurate solutions, the only drawback of the BEM has been its somewhat more limited range of analysis types. This paper describes how the Dual Reciprocity BEM technique has been applied in a commercial BEM package to offer a solution for dynamic analysis.

The surface-only modeling of the BEM has caused the technique to be readily integrated into a CAD environment and thus used in the design groups of engineering corporations instead of being limited to specialist analysis groups. In order to promote more confidence in the solution accuracy when analysis software is used in an automated way in a design environment, an adaptive scheme can be used in the solver. This paper describes an adaptive scheme implemented in the BEASY software, and shows how accurate and reliable solutions can be obtained from simplistic CAD type models.