Boundary element analysis of thin anisotropic structures by a self-regularization scheme

In the conventional boundary element method (BEM), the presence of singular kernels in the boundary integral equation or integral identities causes serious inaccuracy of the numerical solutions when the source and field points are very close to each other. This situation occurs commonly in elastostatic analysis of thin structures. The numerical inaccuracy issue can be resolved by some regularization process. Very recently, the self-regularization scheme originally proposed by Cruse and Richardson (1996) for 2D stress analysis has been extended and modified by He and Tan (2013) to 3D elastostatics analysis of isotropic bodies. This paper deals with the extension of the technique developed by the latter authors to the elastostatics analysis of 3D thin, anisotropic structures using the self-regularized displacement boundary integral equation (BIE). The kernels of the BIE employ the double Fourier-series representations of the fundamental solutions as proposed by Shiah, Tan and Wang (2012) and Tan, Shiah and Wang (2013) recently. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the veracity of the scheme for BEM analysis of thin anisotropic bodies.