Interface integral BEM for solving multi-medium elasticity problems

In this paper, boundary integral equations for multi-medium elasticity problems are derived from the boundary-domain integral equations for single medium elasticity problems with varying shear modulus. The new formulations derived make up for the lack of boundary integral equations in solving multi-medium problems using the boundary element method. The effect of nonhomogeneity between adjacent materials is embodied by the interface integrals appearing in the integral equation and including the differences of adjacent material properties. Comparing to conventional multi-domain boundary element methods, the presented Interface Integral BEM (IIBEM) approach is more efficient in computational time, data preparing, and program coding. Numerical examples are given to verify the correctness of the derived boundary-interface integral equations. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.