Transformation of Domain Integrals in BEM for Thick Foundation Plates

Abstract

In this paper, the domain integrals due to uniform load or self-weight that appear in the boundary element method (BEM) formulation for thick plates resting on elastic foundations are transformed to boundary integrals. The Reissner plate bending model is used to model the plate behavior, and the two-parameter Pasternak model is used to model the behavior of the foundation. The necessary particular solutions are derived, and the explict forms for the new boundary kernels are given. Two different collocation procedures are considered—external and boundary collocations. In the case of the boundary collocation and internal collocation (for computing internal functions) procedures, an additional free term is obtained, due to the discontinuity of the transformed kernels. The new boundary integrals are hypersingular integrals. However, it will be shown that these hypersingular terms vanish when integrated around a closed contour. Three numerical examples are presented with several parametric studies to demonstrate the accuracy of the present formulation.