Weakly equilibrated basis functions for elasticity problems

Abstract

Abstract In this paper weakly equilibrated basis functions (EqBFs) are introduced for the development of a boundary point method. This study is the extension of the one in (Int. J. Numer. Methods Engng. 81 (2010) 971–1018) using exponential basis functions (EBFs) which are available just for partial differential equations (PDEs) with constant coefficients. Here the EqBFs are evaluated numerically to solve more general PDEs with non-constant coefficients. The EqBFs are found through weighted residual integrals defined over a fictitious domain embedding the main domain. A series of Chebyshev polynomials are used for the construction of the basis functions. By properly choosing the weight functions as the product of two unidirectional functions, here with Gaussian distribution, the main 2D integrals are written as the product of the simpler 1D ones. The results of the integrals can be stored for further use; however in some particular cases the EqBFs may be stored as a set of library functions. The results may also be found useful for those who are interested in residual-free functions in other numerical methods. For the verification, we discuss on the validity of the solution through an essential and comprehensive test procedure followed by several numerical examples.