ABSTRACT
The fundamentals of the boundary elementmethod (BEM)were presented inChapter 2. The reader may notice that if the solution variables are represented as constants over the boundary segments, the developments of Chapter 2 are sufficient for an understanding and implementation of the method. However, for better representation of the geometry as well as better accuracy of the solution variables, often, higher polynomial order representation of the solution variables as well as the geometry is needed. As in the finite element methods (FEM), this leads to isoparametric formulation of the boundary element equations. This chapter will present the basic approach of transforming the global coordinates to normalized local systems and the use of higher order polynomial shape functions in the process of boundary element discretization.
