Boundary Element Methods for Engineers:

Part I: Potential Problems

Boundary Element Analysis of Potential Problems

It can be anticipated that if point p is taken to the boundary at a point P, the resulting equation will
involve only quantities on the boundary.

Figure 2.3 Typical point P on the boundary

(a) P on a smooth part of the boundary (b) P at a corner

Around the source point P on the boundary, which is assumed to be locally smooth as in Figure 2.3a,
consider an arc of a circle centred at P, the ends of which are on the boundary. Smooth in this context
means that the direction of the tangent to the boundary does not undergo an abrupt change at point P.
If the radius of the arc is very small, the value of can again be taken as constant within it, equal to the
value at point P, that is () . The integral over the region enclosed by the arc off2 can be inferred

from Equation 2.18 (which again evolved from Equation 2.12) as , because as the radius of the arc
shrinks to zero the region of integration becomes a semi-circle, containing just half of the effects of the
point source (the other half being outside the boundary). Equation 2.25 becomes

() + d = 0 (2.27)

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