A panel clustering method for 3-D elastostatics using spherical harmonics

Despite ist advantage of boudary-only discretization, the standard boundary element method (BEM) involves huge computational costs for large-scale 3-D problems due to its dense matrix formulation. The situation is even worse for the 3-D elastostatic problem, where the number of unknowns is three times that of the potential problem. In this paper, we will apply the panel clustering method using multipole expansions in ordr to reduce the computational costs for the 3-D boundary elements analysis of elastostatics.