Simulation of two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction problems by a fast singular boundary method

The study presents a fast direct algorithm for solutions of systems arising from singular boundary method (SBM) in two-dimensional (2D) steady-state heat conduction problems. As a strong-form boundary discretization collocation technique, the SBM is mathematically simple, easy-to-implement, and free of mesh. Similar to boundary element method (BEM), the SBM generates a dense coefficient matrix, which requires O(N-3) operations and O(N-2) memory to solve the system with direct solvers. In this study, a fast direct solver based on recursive skeletonization factorization (RSF) is applied to solve the linear systems in the SBM. Due to the fact that the coefficient matrix is hierarchically block separable, we can construct a multilevel generalized LU decomposition that allows fast application of the inverse of the coefficient matrix. Combing the RSF and the SBM can dramatically reduce the operations and the memory to O(N). The accuracy and effectiveness of the RSF-SBM are tested through some 2D heat conduction problems including isotropic and anisotropic cases.