Author(s)

A. Nicolet

Abstract

This introductory paper presents the physical interpretation of the boundary element method in electromagnetism. Electrostatics is taken as a basic example and a capacitive circuit analogy is introduced to demonstrate some principles. 1 Introduction The boundary element method is used in several fields of engineering. It has now proved to be an important tool for numerical computations. But though many scientists have some knowledge on finite element methods they usually know very little about the boundary element method. This is maybe due to the mathematical tools required to enter the boundary element world: Green function, Green identity, fundamental solution, singular integrals Nevertheless, the boundary element method is quite natural in electromagnetism and some of the classical tools of electricians are precisely what is required

Keywords