ABSTRACT
Historically, the application of integral equations to formulate the fundamental boundary-value problems of potential theory dates back to 1903 when Fredholm [4] demonstrated the existence of solutions to such equations, on the basis of a discretisation procedure. Due to the difficulty of finding analytical solutions, the use of integral equations has, to a great extent, been limited to theoretical investigations of existence and uniqueness in solutions of problems of mathematical physics. However, the appearance of computers has made it possible to implement discretisation procedures analytically and has enabled numerical solutions to be readily achieved.
