Helmholtz Decomposition and Boundary Element Method Applied to Dynamic Linear Elastic Problems

Abstract

The displacement field for three dimensional dynamic elasticity problems in the frequency domain can be decomposed into a sum of a longitudinal and a transversal part known as a Helmholtz decomposition. The Cartesian components of both the longitudinal and transverse fields satisfy scalar Helmholtz equations that can be solved using a desingularized boundary element method (BEM) framework. The curl free longitudinal and divergence free transversal conditions can also be cast as additional scalar Helmholtz equations. When compared to other BEM implementations, the current framework leads to smaller matrix dimensions and a simpler conceptual approach. The numerical implementation of this appro..