ELASTIC STRESS-ANALYSIS OF 3-DIMENSIONAL SOLIDS WITH SMALL HOLES BY BEM

An advanced level development of the boundary element method is presented for the elastic stress analysis of a three-dimensional solid containing a large number of small diameter, tubular shaped holes. The formulation has been developed such that these holes can be modelled by a system of curvilinear line elements, resulting in substantial savings in both data preparation and computing costs. This is accomplished by assuming a variation in the displacement field along the circumference defined in terms of trigonometric functions together with a linear or quadratic variation of displacements along the longitudinal direction.