A pseudospectral three-dimensional boundary integral method applied to a nonlinear model problem from finite elasticity. (English) Zbl 0815.41008

Ganesh, M.; Graham, I. G.; Sivaloganathan, J.

SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 31, No. 5, 1378-1414 (1994).

Summary: This paper concerns the numerical analysis of the pseudospectral boundary integral method for the solution of linear boundary value problems for the vector Laplace equation in a three-dimensional (3D) region formed when a small ball is removed from inside the unit ball \(B\subset \mathbb{R}^ 3\). These problems arise as Newton iterates for a certain nonlinear model problem deriving from finite elasticity, which exhibits a mechanism under which a deformed body undergoes a degenerate form of cavitation. The unit ball represents an elastic body, with the small ball representing a “core region”, which is mapped to a cavity by the (possibly large) deformation. This deformation satisfies the (vector) Laplace equation in the body minus the core region, together with a Dirichlet condition on the outer boundary and a nonlinear Neumann condition on the inner boundary. Newton’s method yields a sequence of linear problems that are reformulated as a \(6\times 6\) coupled system of boundary integral equations. The authors introduce a pseudospectral (discrete global Galerkin) method for this system, using the spherical harmonics as basis functions. By extending the known approximation theory for spherical polynomials it is proved that this method converges faster than any power of \({1\over n}\) when the number of degrees of freedom is \(O((n +1)^ 2)\). As well as providing a convergence theory for this boundary value problem, the paper also contains a number of new results on spherical polynomial approximation and on the convergence of the pseudospectral method for classical integral equations of 3D potential theory on spheres.

MSC:

41A10	Approximation by polynomials
41A63	Multidimensional problems
45B05	Fredholm integral equations
49K20	Optimality conditions for problems involving partial differential equations
49M05	Numerical methods based on necessary conditions
65R20	Numerical methods for integral equations
74B99	Elastic materials
74C99	Plastic materials, materials of stress-rate and internal-variable type
74D99	Materials of strain-rate type and history type, other materials with memory (including elastic materials with viscous damping, various viscoelastic materials)

Keywords:

boundary integral equations; pseudospectral method; spherical harmonics; finite elasticity; cavitation

Software:

LAPLAC