A new boundary element method for the biharmonic equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions (Q1397300)

The authors consider the biharmonic equation with Dirichlet boundary data on a bounded domain \(\Omega \) with Lipschitz boundary in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) (\(n=2\) or \(3\)). Using Almansi representation of \(w\) they transform the problem to the boundary integral equation \(L\Phi =F\) on \(\partial \Omega \). Then they prove that \(L:H^{-1}(\partial \Omega)\to H^1(\partial \Omega)\) is strongly elliptic provided the Lipschitz domain \(\Omega \) is star-shaped. The authors analyse the Galerkin boundary element method and show \(O(h^4)\) convergence in a certain negative norm even for the piecewise constants, and \(O(h^6)\) convergence for piecewise linears. They present numerical results using piecewise constants for 2-dimensional domains with smooth and nonsmooth boundaries.