Cost estimation of the panel clustering method applied to 3-D elastostatics

Abstract

We present an efficient algorithm for the panel clustering method for the three-dimensional elastostatic problem, which reduces the memory and computational work for the boundary element method. In order to make the necessary polynomial expansions for the clustering simple, the fundamental solutions for the displacement components are expressed as a linear combination of partial derivatives of the distance between the observation point and the field point. It is shown that this approach is more efficient than the standard expression by comparing the estimates for the computational work.