The fast multipole method-accelerated line integration boundary element method for 3D heat conduction analysis with heat source

Purpose - 3D steady heat conduction analysis considering heat source is conducted on the fundamental of the fast multipole method (FMM)-accelerated line integration boundary element method (LIBEM). Design/methodology/approach - Due to considering the heat source, domain integral is generated in the traditional heat conduction boundary integral equation (BIE), which will counteract the well-known merit of the BEM, namely, boundary-only discretization. To avoid volume discretization, the enhanced BEM, the LIBEM with dimension reduction property is introduced to transfer the domain integral into line integrals. Besides, owing to the unsatisfactory performance of the LIBEM when it comes to large-scale structures requiring massive computation, the FMM-accelerated LIBEM (FM-LIBEM) is proposed to improve the computation efficiency further. Findings - Assuming N and M are the numbers of nodes and integral lines, respectively, the FM-LIBEM can reduce the time complexity from O(NM) to about O(N + M), and a full discussion and verification of the advantage are done based on numerical examples under heat conduction. Originality/value - (1) The LIBEM is applied to 3D heat conduction analysis with heat source. (2) The domain integrals can be transformed into boundary integrals with straight line integrals by the LIM. (3) A FM-LIBEM is proposed and can reduce the time complexity from O(NM) to O(N + M). (4) The FM-LIBEM with high computational efficiency is exerted to solve 3D heat conduction analysis with heat source in massive computation successfully.