Sensitivity analysis for boundary element error estimation and mesh refinement

The subject of this paper is the sensitivity analysis of approximate boundary element solutions with respect to the positions of the collocation points. The direct differentiation approach is considered here and the analysis is performed analytically. Since only the collocation points are perturbed, the shape of the body and the corresponding discretization remain unaltered. This aspect makes the present work quite different in spirit with respect to earlier analyses on shape sensitivities. Sensitivities of approximate BEM solutions with respect to the positions of collocation points are shown to be related to the residual of hypersingular integral equations. Numerical results confirm that the present approach can be seen as the analytical counterpart of an adaptive scheme for mesh refinement presented by the same author in some recent papers. Some other advantages of the present approach over the former one are also outlined.