Author(s)

R.P. Shaw

Abstract

*E' can mean eigenfunction in BEM R.P. Shaw Department of Civil Engineering, S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo, INTRODUCTION: An examination of the history of what we now call boundary element methods (BEM) would quickly reveal that this was not the original name for this method. The key idea then had been the reduction of dimensionality by taking a domain problem to a boundary problem. Emphasis was on the formulation, i.e. the boundary integral equation method (BIEM), e.g. Cruse and Rizzo'. This formulation, then also called the surface integral equation, was equivalent to any partial differential equation formulation. It is only in the approximation of this integral equation that errors, other than those inherent in any mathematical modeling of an engineering problem, are introduced. What is of particular interest here is the fact that "other than element" solution methods have a long history within this field. Some of these have been

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