The Boundary Element Technique for the Analysis of Automotive Structures

In the automotive industry considerable effort is expended on the stress analysis of mechanical components. Numerical methods are normally used for this analysis, and the commonest of these methods is the Finite Element Method (FEM). More recently a new technique has been developed called the Boundary Element Method (BEM). This method, based on the theory of integral equations, has the advantage that only the boundary of the problem need be divided into elements thus reducing the amount of data preparation required to describe the geometry by one dimension.