Geometrical symmetry in the boundary element method

Abstract

Geometrical symmetry is found in many linear field problems. It cannot be intuitively taken into account for general excitation. A rationale is thus required and the group representation theory is the only valuable tool for this purpose. A theoretical description of this concept with application to the boundary element method is presented. Symmetrized kernels are derived in a systematic way. The general non-abelian case of symmetry is considered. Numerical results are presented and gains in CPU time and memory volume are measured to demonstrate the efficiency of the method.