The fast solution of boundary integral equations. (Q2369709)

The rough contents of this book is as follows: Preface, Ch. 1, Boundary integral equations, Ch. 2, Boundary element methods, Ch. 3, Approximation of boundary element Matrices, Ch. 4, Implementation and numerical examples, three appendices (Mathematical foundations, Numerical analysis and Numerical algorithms), references (119 titles) and a subject index. The book provides a concise, insightful and elegant introduction to the mathematical analysis of the boundary element method (BEM) as a tool in solving various boundary value problems for linear elliptic 3D partial differential equations. The authors pay special attention to the approximation of boundary element matrices as a way to improve the performance, i.e., the ``velocity'' of the BEM as well as to lower the amount of required computer memory. The partially pivoted adaptive cross approximation algorithm is exclusively used for this purpose. However, after a thorough description of the fundamentals of the method (variational formulation of the problem, basis functions, etc.) the authors carry out a large variety of numerical experiments. They consider in turn the Laplace equation, linear elastostatics equations and the Helmholtz equation, and emphasize the issue of the generation of matrices. In three appendices some basic auxiliary results are collected.