A fast multipole boundary element method for three-dimensional potential flow problems

A fast multipole methodology (FMM) is developed as a numerical approach to reduce the computational cost and memory requirements in solving large-scale problems. It is applied to the boundary element method (BEM) for three-dimensional potential flow problems. The algorithm based on mixed multipole expansion and numerical integration is implemented in combination with an iterative solver. Numerical examinations, on Dirichlet and Neumann problems, are carried out to demonstrate the capability and accuracy of the present method. It has been shown that the method has evident advantages in saving memory and computing time when used to solve huge-scale problems which may be prohibitive for the traditional BEM implementation.