Accepted Manuscript

A modified singular boundary method for three-dimensional high

frequency acoustic wave problems

Junpu Li , Wen Chen

PII: S0307-904X(17)30590-5
DOI: 10.1016/j.apm.2017.09.037
Reference: APM 11982

To appear in: Applied Mathematical Modelling

Received date: 31 May 2017

Revised date: 1 September 2017
Accepted date: 14 September 2017

Please cite this article as: Junpu Li , Wen Chen , A modified singular boundary method for three-
dimensional high frequency acoustic wave problems, Applied Mathematical Modelling (2017), doi:
10.1016/j.apm.2017.09.037

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Highlights

 A modified fundamental solution of Helmholtz equation is proposed.

 The modified singular boundary method only needs 2-3 source points in one
wavelength per direction.

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 The modified singular boundary method has similar condition number to the

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boundary element method.

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 Three-dimensional Helmholtz equation with up to wavenumber 440 has successfully
been simulated.

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A modified singular boundary method for three-dimensional

high frequency acoustic wave problems
Junpu Li and Wen Chen

State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering & Center for Numerical
Simulation Software in Engineering and Sciences, College of Mechanics and Materials, Hohai University, Nanjing,
Jiangsu, 210098, China

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Abstract The main purpose of this article is to propose a modified singular boundary

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method using the modified fundamental solution of Helmholtz equation for simulation
of three-dimensional high frequency acoustic wave problems. Compared with the

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standard second-order discretization methods which usually need to place more than
10-12 grid points in one wavelength per direction, the newly proposed modified
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singular boundary method only needs 2-3 source points in one wavelength of each
direction to produce the accurate solutions with relative error around 1E-3 level which
satisfies most application requirements. It is observed that the present algorithm has
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similar condition number to the boundary element method and can hereby be solved
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efficiently by the iterative solver. By adopting the range restricted generalized

minimal residual algorithm iterative solver, numerical experiments with 194,400
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source points have successfully been achieved on a single laptop for

three-dimensional high frequency acoustic wave problems with up to wavenumber
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440.
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Keywords: Modified fundamental solution of Helmholtz equation; Singular boundary

method; ill-conditioning; Helmholtz equation; High frequency acoustic wave
problems

1. Introduction


Corresponding authors, Tel.: +86-25-83786873; fax: +86-25-83736860.
E-mail address: chenwen@hhu.edu.cn (W. Chen).
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The numerical simulation of the high frequency acoustic wave propagation has a
wide variety of applications in diverse science and engineering fields [1-4], such as
vehicle noise analysis, underwater sonar imaging detection, high-speed railway
vibration and noise, etc.
Unlike the Laplace problems, it is computationally very expensive to solve the
Helmholtz equation with large wavenumber. This is because of three reasons. Firstly,

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the Helmholtz problems are usually posed on the infinite domain, which has either to

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be artificially truncated in the finite element methods (FEM) [5-6] or to encounter

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fully-polluted interpolation matrix in the boundary element method (BEM) [7-8].
Secondly, one needs to use a much higher sampling frequency than what would be

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required to obtain the reasonable solution because of the pollution effect [9]. Finally,
one has to solve the resulting very large-scale and highly ill-conditioned linear
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equations [10].
Theoretically, the number of elements in the FEM scales up at least by the cube of
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kd for three-dimensional (3-D) problems, and in fact even more than that [11], where
k represents the wavenumber and d means the maximum diameter of the
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computational domain. In the BEM [12], the number of elements increases by the
square of kd. In order to reduce such computational expenses, several numerical
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techniques have been proposed in recent years [13-15], among which the common
feature is the use of a priori knowledge on the oscillatory nature of the solution in the
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design of the numerical scheme.

Gilad [16] proposed an asymptotically derived BEM where the kernel function is
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the product of a smooth amplitude and an oscillatory phase factor. This strategy has
high-order accuracy, whose required element number in per wavelength direction is
far less than the BEM. However, the singular integration is still inevitable which
brings heavy computing loads in high-dimensional high-frequency cases.
Kim [17] suggested an asymptotic decomposition (AD) approach. Numerical
experiments show that this algorithm scheme is accurate enough when placing 4-5

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grid points per wavelength. However, like the asymptotically derived BEM mentioned
above, the AD approach is only applicable to the problems whose solution property is
already partly known.
Chen [18-19] proposed the boundary knot method (BKM) which uses the
non-singular general solutions of the Helmholtz equation as the kernel function.
Numerical investigations illustrate that two boundary nodes per wavelength in one
direction is usually enough to yield the highly accurate solution for 3D

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high-frequency acoustic wave problems. However, severely ill-conditioned

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interpolation matrix constrains its application for large-scale problems.

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The singular boundary method (SBM) [20-22] is a strong-form boundary
collocation algorithm and has clear boundaries with the boundary element method

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(BEM) and the method of fundamental solution (MFS) [23-25]. The key technique in
the SBM is to replace the singularity at origin of the fundamental solution by the
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origin intensity factor (OIF). It is noted that the SBM is easily applicable to
complex-shaped domain problems. Although extensive studies have been reported in
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the literatures for the SBM simulation of potential theory [26], low frequency
Helmholtz equation[27], time-dependent diffusion problems[28], etc. However, few
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has been done to analyze the Helmholtz equation with high wavenumber.
As the boundary collocation methods, the BKM and the SBM share some common
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properties but have their own merits and demerits as well. The merits of the BKM are
the low sampling frequency and high numerical accuracy. However, severe
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ill-condition of its interpolation matrix obstructs its use with the iterative solver and
hereby constrains its application to large-scale problems. On the other hand, the
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advantage of the SBM is the high numerical stability but requires placing at least 6
source points in one wavelength per direction to obtain the reasonable solution in
simulation of 3-D acoustic wave problems, which causes heavy computation load for
large-scale computation.
In this article, a modified fundamental solution of the Helmholtz equation to
replace the standard fundamental solution in the SBM is proposed. We call the SBM

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based on the modified fundamental solution as the modified singular boundary

method (MSBM) in the study. The modified fundamental solution can be considered a
tradeoff between the standard fundamental solution and the general solution. By the
help of the modified fundamental solution, the merits of the BKM and the SBM are
combined to achieve reasonable solution accuracy in a low sampling frequency while
keeping the condition number (L2-norm) sufficiently low.
The article is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the modified fundamental

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solution of Helmholtz equation and its application to the SBM formulation. Section 3

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investigates the MSBM through two benchmark examples. Finally, some conclusions

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and outlook are provided in Section 4 and Section 5, respectively.

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2. Formulation of the modified singular boundary method
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The governing equation of the propagation of the steady acoustic wave in the
isotropic medium can be expressed as the Helmholtz equation with constant
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wavenumber. The 3D Helmholtz equation on Dirichlet boundary conditions can be

written as
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2u  xm   k 2u  xm   0, ( xm )  , (1)
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u  xm   u  xm  , ( xm )  , (2)

where  2 denotes the Laplacian operator, k is the wavenumber. u ( xm ) means the

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known boundary values on the boundary  , u ( xm ) represents the physical value in

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domain  at point xm , xm is a computational point in domain  .

In the SBM and the BKM, a linear combination of basis functions corresponding to

different boundary source points s j is adopted to approximate the physical variable

u ( xm ) as below,

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N
u ( xm )    j G ( xm , s j ) , (3)
j 1

where  j is the unknown coefficient and G the basis function. In the BKM,

sin(kr )
G  GBKM , where GBKM  is the general solutions of 3D Helmholtz equation,
r

k the wavenumber, r the distance between source point and collocation point. In

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eikr

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the SBM, we take G  GSBM as the basis function, where GSBM  is the
r

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fundamental solutions of 3-D Helmholtz equation adopted in the BEM and the SBM.

eikr
Considering that the fundamental solution GSBM  has singularity at origin, the

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SBM uses the OIF [29-30] to replace the singular terms in the interpolation matrix.
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The SBM formulation with the standard fundamental solution can be expressed as

N
u  xi     j GSBM ( xi , s j )  iU i , (4)
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j 1, j i

where u ( xi ) denotes the known physical variable on boundary  , U i represents

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the OIF of the 3D Helmholtz equation.

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On the other hand, because the non-singular general solution is adopted in the
BKM, the BKM formulation can be written as
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N
u  xi     j GBKM ( xi , s j ) , (5)
j 1
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With either Eq. (4) or Eq. (5), we can obtain the unknown coefficient  j .

Consequently, the physical variable u ( xm ) at any point in domain  can be easily

calculated by Eq. (3).

Because the non-singular general solution is adopted in the BKM, we only need to
place 2 source points in each wavelength per direction to obtain the highly accurate

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solution. However, severely ill-conditioned interpolation matrix obstructs its use of

the iterative solver and hereby constrains its application to large-scale problems. On
the other hand, by introducing the concept of the OIF, the SBM avoids the singular
integration and has the similar condition number to the BEM, but the SBM with the
standard fundamental solution still requires to place at least 6 source points in each
wavelength per direction to achieve the reasonable solution accuracy, which brings
rather heavy computing loads for 3D high-frequency acoustic wave problems.

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It is reasonable to think the combination of merits of the BKM and the SBM. With

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this idea in mind, we propose a modified fundamental solution of the Helmholtz

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equation to replace the standard fundamental solution in the SBM. By the application
of the modified fundamental solution, we can obtain a reasonable solution accuracy in

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a low sampling frequency while keeping the conditioning number sufficiently low.
The modified fundamental solution M can be expressed as
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sin(kr) cos(kr)
M （1  ）  ，  [0,1] , (6)
r r
M

where M means the modified fundamental solution of the Helmholtz equation and

  0,1 represents the adjustment parameter.

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It can be noted from Eq. (6) that when   1 , M equals to the real part of the

GSBM , i.e., M  real (GSBM ) , and when   0 , M  GBKM . Actually, we take a

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tradeoff between the real (GSBM ) and GBKM as the basis function of the modified
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singular boundary method, which is controlled by the adjustment parameter  . Thus,

the MSBM may inherit merits from both the BKM and the SBM at the same time.
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The MSBM formulation can hereby be expressed as

N sin(krij ) cos(krij )
u xi     j ((1   )    )  i ((1   )  k   U i ) , (7)
j 1，j  i rij rij

N p

2
 
j 1, j  i n 1
jn

U   i
, (8)
Ri R i
2

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where

 j1   j 3   j 5   j 7  0 , (9)

 R 4j 3sin 2 (ij )
 j2  (  1) , (10)
4rij3 2

 R6j 35sin 4 (ij )

 j4  5
(  5sin 2 (ij )  1) , (11)
8r 8

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ij

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5 R8j 231 6 189 4 21
 j6  7
( sin (ij )  sin (ij )  sin 2 (ij )  1) , (12)
64rij 16 8 2

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where rij means the distance between source point s j and collocation point xi ,

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ij is the angle between the vector xi s j and the normal n j at the boundary point

s j , p means the truncation term, A j represents the corresponding range of

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Aj
influence, R j  denotes the characteristic radius of range of influence.

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To balance the numerical efficiency and accuracy of the OIF, the truncation term
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p is taken 5 in this study. For more details about the OIF, see the Refs [29-30]. The

derivation of Eqs. (8)-(12) is given in Appendix. A, and the code of the OIF
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formulation can be found in the Singularity toolbox V1.0 at following website:

http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13985.51040.
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Finally, we evaluate the unknown coefficient  j by Eqs. (7) and (8). The physical

variable u ( xm ) at any point inside the domain  can hereby be evaluated by Eq.
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(13)

N sin(krmj ) cos(krmj )
u xm     j ((1   )    ), (13)
j 1 rmj rmj

3. Numerical results and discussions

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Without specific instructions, the range restricted generalized minimal residual

algorithm (RRGMRES) [31-34] solver which has the regularization function is
adopted to solve the resulting discretization equations. The results reported below are
calculated on a laptop with Intel Core i7-4710MQ 2.50 GHz Processor and 16GB
RAM. kd (k the wavenumber and d the maximum diameter of the computational
domain) denotes the nondimensional wavenumber.

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The numerical accuracy is depicted by the average relative errors (Rerr).

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NT NT

 u m

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Re rr(u )   u(m)  u (m)
2 2
, (14)
m 1 m 1

where u m and u m mean the analytical and numerical solutions at xm ,
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respectively, NT represents the test points number. To characterize the convergence
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of the numerical results, Eq. (15) is given

ln  Error  N1    ln  Error  N 2  
C  2 , (15)
ln  N1   ln  N 2 
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where ErrorN1  and ErrorN 2  denote numerical errors against the source points
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number N 1 and N 2 , respectively.

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Example 1. Consider a 3D acoustic wave problem in the unit cube domain (with
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ck
f  , c  340m / s ). The test points are placed on the sphere surface with radius
2
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0.4m, and the analytical solution is given by


 u ( x, y, z )  k u ( x, y, z )  0, ( x, y, z ) 
2 2

 .
u  x, y, z   cos(kx)  cos(ky)  cos(kz ), ( x, y, z ) 


Case 1. The numerical characteristics of the MSBM are investigated in this case. The

results of the MSBM with   1E  3 against the wavenumber k (m 1 ) and

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nondimensional wavenumber kd ( d  3m ) are listed in Tab. 1.

Table. 1 MSBM simulation results against wavenumber k

Nodes N 9,600 48,600 88,640 101,400 135,000 194,400
Wavenumber k 100 220 290 320 370 440
Dimensionless wavenumber kd 173 381 502 554 641 762
Frequency f (Hz) 5,411 11,905 15,693 17,316 20,022 23,810
Nodes/Wavelength (N/λ) 2.51 2.57 2.59 2.55 2.55 2.57

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Iteration number 200 200 250 350 350 350

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Rerr 4.3E-3 3.1E-3 1.08E-2 1.04E-2 9.68E-3 1.44E-2

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It can be observed from Tab. 1 that the MSBM only needs to place 2-3 source
points in each wavelength per direction to obtain the reasonable solution accuracy.

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The proposed modified fundamental solution enables the MSBM to overcome the
issue of high sampling frequency in simulation of Helmholtz equation with high
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wavenumber.
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Case 2. The condition number (L2-norm) and the influence of the adjustment
parameter  are investigated in this case. In order to avoid the possible influence of
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the iterative solver, it should be stressed that the Gaussian solver is adopted in this
case. Tab. 2 is listed to show the condition number (L2-norm) of the MSBM with
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  1E  3 ,   1 and   0 , respectively, against the source points number under

k  20m1 . The average relative error and condition number (L2-norm) against the
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adjustment parameter  are listed in Tab. 3 under source points number 2,400 and
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k  40m1 (N/λ=3.14).

Table. 2 MSBM simulation results against the source points number

Nodes N 600 2,400 5,400 9,600
α Condition number (L2-norm)
α=1E-3 3.9E+3 1.0E+4 1.6E+4 2.1E+4
α=1 4.3E+1 5.4E+1 1.0E+2 1.4E+2
α=0 3.3E+15 1.5E+19 5.0E+19 5.2E+20

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Table. 3 The average relative error and condition number (L2-norm) of the MSBM against 
α 1E+0 1E-1 1E-2 1E-3 1E-8 0
Condition number
4.8E+2 4.0E+2 2.2E+3 1.8E+4 4.6E+8 3.9E+18
(L2-norm)
Rerr 3.5E-1 7.0E-2 1.2E-2 6.6E-3 1.9E-4 1.3E-5

It can be observed that the condition number (L2-norm) and accuracy of the MSBM

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both increase with the decreasing of the adjustment parameter  . Actually, the

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MSBM tends to the BKM when  is taken 0, and degenerates into the SBM with
the standard fundamental solution when  is taken 1.

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Secondly, Tabs. 4a and 4b are listed to show the different numerical efficiency and
storage requirements of the MSBM and the SBM to obtain the reasonable numerical
solution accuracy. US
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Table. 4a Numerical results of the MSBM (α=1E-3)
Nodes N 384 864 1,536 2,400
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Wavenumber k 20 30 40 50
Nodes/Wavelength (N/λ) 2.51 2.51 2.51 2.51
Rerr (α=1E-3) 3.60E-2 1.33E-2 1.11E-2 3.54E-2
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CPU time (s) 0.038 0.092 0.269 0.583

Storage requirements (Mb) 0.29 2.65 9.09 25.3
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Table. 4b Numerical results of the SBM with the standard fundamental solutions
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Nodes N 2,400 5,400 9,600 1,5000

Wavenumber k 20 30 40 50
Nodes/Wavelength (N/λ) 6.28 6.28 6.28 6.28
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Rerr 6.42E-3 3.91E-2 2.04E-2 1.06E-2

CPU time (s) 1.01 8.06 33.82 198.98
Storage requirements (Mb) 50.4 283 950 1,935

It can be observed form Tabs. 4a and 4b that the modified fundamental solution has
obvious advantage over the standard fundamental solution in terms of numerical
efficiency. When the wavenumber is taken k=50, the required boundary nodes number,
CPU time and storage requirements of the MSBM is 16%, 2.9‰ and 1.3%,
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respectively, of those of the SBM with the standard fundamental solution. And this
advantage will be more obvious with the increasing of wavenumber. In theory, the
operation efficiency (with Gaussian solver) and storage requirements of the boundary

collocation method is O( N 3 ) and O( N 2 ) , respectively. The storage requirements

and computation load increase very fast with the boundary nodes increasing. That is
the reason why it is so important to find a new strategy with both low sampling

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frequency and low condition number in simulation Helmholtz equation with large

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wavenumber.
Thirdly, Tabs. 5a-5c are listed to show the different numerical accuracy, condition

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number (L2-norm), and CPU time (seconds) of the MSBM, the BKM, the SBM, the
BEM and the MFS (with the cube surface having length 2 as the fictitious boundary),

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respectively, against the wavenumber k (with 5400 source points or boundary
elements).
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Table. 5a The numerical accuracy of the different methods against the wavenumber k
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Wavenumber k 15 30 45 60 75
N/λ 12.57 6.28 4.19 3.14 2.51
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MSBM (α=1E-5) 5.27E-6 2.08E-4 1.39E-4 3.30E-4 5.42E-3

MSBM (α=1E-3) 8.72E-6 6.72E-3 4.31E-4 1.05E-2 7.71E-3
MSBM (α=1E-2) 1.56E-4 2.75E-2 3.47E-3 8.58E-2 2.51E-2
MSBM (α=1) 1.74E-2 7.97E-2 2.21E-1 6.31E-1 4.40E-1
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BKM 3.16E-7 1.76E-6 6.14E-6 5.56E-5 7.96E-4

BEM 5.38E-3 5.93E-2 4.01E-1 1.49E-1 4.33E-1
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MFS 3.23E-13 1.07E-11 1.34E-10 6.97E-9 8.12E-6

SBM 2.26E-3 3.91E-2 2.51E-2 4.92E-1 1.23E-1
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Table. 5b The condition number (L2-norm) of the different methods against the wavenumber k
Wavenumber k 15 30 45 60 75
N/λ 12.57 6.28 4.19 3.14 2.51
MSBM (α=1E-5) 2.02E+6 1.10E+6 7.34E+5 5.30E+5 6.62E+5
MSBM (α=1E-3) 2.02E+4 1.41E+4 2.42E+4 1.96E+4 1.59E+4
MSBM (α=1E-2) 2.01E+3 5.03E+3 4.05E+3 3.00E+3 1.61E+3
MSBM (α=1) 5.79E+2 6.98E+3 1.99E+3 7.64E+2 9.44E+2
BKM 9.72E+19 3.46E+19 5.53E+19 1.34E+19 2.06E+18
BEM 2.60E+1 7.02E+1 1.74E+2 5.61E+1 2.26E+1
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MFS 1.85E+19 7.34E+18 2.27E+18 1.91E+18 3.24E+17

SBM 2.18E+1 8.90E+1 1.76E+3 1.09E+2 1.13E+2

Table. 5c The CPU time costs (seconds) of the different methods against the wavenumber k

Wavenumber k 15 30 45 60 75
N/λ 12.57 6.28 4.19 3.14 2.51
MSBM (α=1E-5) 3.58 3.40 3.42 3.31 3.35
MSBM (α=1E-3) 2.94 2.95 3.14 3.03 3.05
MSBM (α=1E-2) 3.27 3.17 3.21 3.20 3.30

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MSBM (α=1) 3.86 3.85 3.89 4.03 4.06

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BKM 4.31 4.31 4.20 4.27 4.13
BEM 57.75 57.36 56.80 58.07 57.42

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MFS 7.02 7.45 7.42 7.30 7.27
SBM 8.26 7.35 7.35 7.46 7.53

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It is noted that the numerical accuracy and condition number of the MSBM are

different with varying adjustment parameters  , while the CPU time is substantially
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stable. In theory, the selecting of the adjustment parameter is dependent on

nodes/wavelength (N/λ). When the sampling frequency is taken N /  [2,3] , it can

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be observed that   1E  3 can meets most of the computational requirements.

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On one hand, it can be found from Tab. 5a-5c that although the MFS and the BKM
can obtain highly accurate numerical solution in very low sampling frequency, the
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condition numbers (L2-norm) of them are very large. On the other hand, the BEM and
the SBM have low condition number. However, it is observed that both the two
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methods can not obtain the reasonable numerical solution accuracy when we place 2.5
source points in each wavelength per direction.
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Finally, the convergence curves of the BKM, the BEM, the SBM and the MSBM

with varied adjustment parameters  under k  25m1 are plotted in Fig. 1.

On one hand, it can be found from Fig. 1 that the MSBM with   1E 10 ,
  1E  3 and   1 converge stably, while the BKM is in fact equal to the MSBM
with   0 appears unstably due to highly ill-conditioned interpolation matrix. For
large-scale problems, such ill-conditioned discretization matrix could derail the
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numerical solution.
On other hand, in comparison with the SBM using the standard fundamental
solution, the MSBM with   1E  3 and   1E 10 perform better on both
convergence rate and numerical accuracy. Therefore,  plays a role somehow like
the regularization parameter to adjust the balance between the conditioning of the
interpolation matrix and the resulting solution accuracy. Actually, it can be observed
from Fig. 1 that the effect of the regularization is quite obvious even a very small 

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is taken.

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Fig. 1. The convergence curve of the MSBM, the SBM, Fig. 2. The convergence curve of the MSBM with varied
the BKM and the BEM against boundary nodes number. α against iteration number.
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Case 3. The convergence of the MSBM adopting the RRGMRES iterative solver
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against the iteration number is investigated in this case. The convergence curves of

the MSBM solution under 9,600 source points and k  100m1 (with N/λ=2.51)
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against the iteration number are plotted in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 shows that the numerical error decreases rapidly in the initial 10 iterations,
and all converge to the reasonable error within 100 iterations. It can be found that the
smaller the adjustment parameter  is, the slower the convergence speed of the
error curve is observed. This phenomenon is because the adjustment parameter
decides the condition number of the resulting interpolation matrix, which affects

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directly the numerical solving efficiency of the RRGMRES solver.

In conclusions, the adjustment parameter  can be considered a regularization
factor for the MSBM. When the adjustment parameter  becomes smaller, the
MSBM is more tend to the BKM and away from the SBM with the standard
fundamental solution. And both the condition number (L2-norm) of the interpolation
matrix and the resulting solution accuracy increase. Thus, we can achieve possibly a
reasonable solution accuracy with a low sampling frequency while keeping the

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condition number sufficiently low by selecting an appropriate adjustment parameter

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 in the modified fundamental solution.

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Example 2. The main purpose of this example is to examine the MSBM to the

with c  340m / s , k 
2f 1
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complex-shaped domain problems. Consider interior acoustic wave pressure problems

m . The source points are placed on the surface of the

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c
following submarine-shaped domain with body size 120m 12m 12m as shown in
Fig. 3.
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Fig. 3. The submarine-shaped domain.

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Case 1. The governing equation of this case is given by .

 2u ( x, y, z )  k 2u ( x, y, z )  0, ( x, y, z )  

 1 3 3 3
u  x, y, z   J 1 (kr )  cos( kx  ky  kz ), ( x, y, z )  , r  x 2  y 2  z 2
 kr 2 3 3 3

1
where J 1 (kr) represents the -order Bessel function of the first kind.
2 2

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The test points are placed on a line ( x, y, z)  (3 : 0.03 : 3,0,0) . Fig. 4 depicts the

analytical solution and the MSBM results with   1e  3 . 115,846 source points are

used for this kd=1200 case (d=120m), i.e., f=541Hz, and the maximum iteration
number of the RRGMRES solver is set to be 200.
The numerical experiments show that the MSBM solution consumes 5.15E+4s
CPU time, and the average relative error is 2.46%. It can be found from Fig. 4 that the

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MSBM solution is in good agreement with the analytical solution with total

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dimensionless wavenumber up to kd=1200 (d=120m). And it should be stressed that

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the average number of source points in each wavelength per direction is about 3 in

this case with the wavenumber k = 10m1 . This is almost down to the bottom line of

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the minimal sampling frequency allowed by the Shannon's sampling theorem, i.e., in
order for an analog signal to be fully reconstructed, the sampling frequency should not
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be less than twice of the highest frequency in the analog signal spectrum.
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Fig. 4. The MSBM and analytical solutions in Example Fig. 5. The relative error distribution of the MSBM
2 case 1. solution in Example 2 case 2.

Case 2. In this case, we consider the interior acoustic pressure problem having
complex series solution, the governing equation is given by

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 2u ( xm )  k 2u ( xm )  0, ( xm )  

 50
1 .
u  xm    J 1 (kr ) Pn (cos( )), ( xm )  
kr n  2
 n 0

1
where, J 1 (kr) represents the ( n  )-order Bessel function of the first kind,
n
2
2

Pn (cos( )) means the n -order Legendre polynomials.

We take source points number N=115,846,   1e  3 , kd=480 (d=120m), i.e.,

T
IP
f=216Hz, and the maximum iteration number of the RRGMRES solver is set to be
300. We plot Figs. 5 to show the relative error distribution of the MSBM solution on

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plane z  0m . The numerical reports show that the MSBM consumes 6.82E+4s CPU
time to obtain the reasonable numerical results, the average relative error of the

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MSBM solution in Fig. 5 is 7.25E-4, and the maximum relative error is 0.15%.
Through this example, it can be found that the proposed modified fundamental
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solution of Helmholtz equation is still valid for complex-shaped domain problems,
where the numerical efficiency and the numerical stability are almost not affected.
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4. Conclusions
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In this article, a modified singular boundary using the modified fundamental

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solution of Helmholtz equation for 3-D high frequency acoustic wave problems is
proposed. By the help of the newly proposed modified fundamental solution,
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numerical investigations show that the condition number (L2-norm) of the MSBM
significantly drops compared with the BKM, while the solution accuracy remains
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little affected. In comparison with the SBM using standard fundamental solution, the
modified fundamental solution enables the MSBM to place 2-3 source points in each
wavelength per direction to obtain the accurate solution with relative error around
1E-3 level, which satisfies most application requirements. And it should be stressed
that based on the Shannon's sampling theorem, placing 2 source points in each
wavelength is the minimum requirement to produce the correct solution.

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In addition, it is noted that the MSBM has similar condition number to the BEM
under the same number of boundary nodes. This makes the resulting discretization
equations of the MSBM be efficiently solved by the iterative solver [35].
Numerical experiments show that the MSBM performs well for the tested cases and
appears promising to solve the large-scale high frequency acoustic wave problems. It
can be noted that the MSBM yields accurate solution for high frequency acoustic
wave problems up to k=440 in unit cube domain when the boundary nodes number is

T
taken 194,400. In stark contrast, the wavenumber upper limit is about k=185 in the

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SBM with the standard fundamental solutions. In addition, the strategy is also

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successfully tested to the interior acoustic pressure simulation of a submarine model
with dimensionless total wavenumber kd=1200 (d=120m).

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In conclusions, the most important significance of the proposed modified
fundamental solutions is that by introducing the concept of the adjustment parameter
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 , it is possible to artificially adjusts the numerical characteristics of the MSBM. We

can achieve possibly reasonable solution accuracy in a low sampling frequency while
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keeping the condition number sufficiently low by selecting an appropriate adjustment

parameter  in the modified fundamental solution.

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5. Outlook
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As a novel proposed numerical methodology, the MSBM still encounters the

following problems to be further addressed:
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1) Determine the optimal adjustment parameter  in the modified fundamental

solution of Helmholtz equation in terms of nodes/wavelength (N/λ);
2) Further accelerate the solution process by using an appropriate fast algorithm
[36-39];
3) Select an appropriate preconditioning technique to reduce the iteration number
of the RRGMRES iterative solver.

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Appendix A. The derivation of Eqs. (8)-(12)

In previous studies [29], it is demonstrated that the SBM with Eq. (A1) has the
explicit error bounds, and the discrete form of Eq. (A1) was given in the Ref [29].

G0  xi , s j  Aj
N
  xi   
j 1, j i
U 
i
0 , (A1)
Ai

T
where G0 xi , s j  

IP
1
,   xi    G0 ( xi , s)d   s  , A j is the range of influence,
xi  s j 

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U 0i the OIF of the Laplace equation on Dirichlet boundary conditions.

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AN
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ED
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CE
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Fig. A1. The local polar coordinate system for Fig. A2. The local polar coordinate system of the

nodes Q and P . source point s j .

Based on multipole expansion [40-41], the following multipole expansion formula

is given

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1  n
 Pn (cos( )) , (A2)
r  n 0 r n 1

where r  is the distance between points P and Q ,  the angle between the

vectors P and Q , as given in Fig. A1. Pn (u ) represents the Legendre polynomial

of degree n . We reformulate Eq. (A1) as

T
G0  xi , s j  A j
N N

 G0  xi , s  d   s     G0  xi , s  d   s  
j 1, j i A j

j 1, j i

IP
Ai
U 0i  . (A3)
Ai

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By the help of Eq. (A2), the middle part of Eq. (A3) can be rewritten as

 p
qii iin
 G0  xi , s  d   s    Pn (cos( ii ))
Aj


q n
USii 1 n  0 rij

  iin 1ii Pn (cos( ii ))  G0  xi , s j  Aj

p
n 1

, (A4)
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ii 1 n 1 rij


where p   , A j   qii ,  ii denotes the child node of the source point s j
M

ii 1

within the range of influence A j , qii is the weight value of the child nodes  ii ,  ii
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the distance between source point s j and its child node  ii , rij the distance
PT

between the source point s j and collocation point xi , ii  s j  xi   ii , as given

in Fig. A2.
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For each range of influence A j , we establish a local polar coordinate system with
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origin at point s j . The coordinate of the collocation point xi in this local polar

coordinate system is (rij , ij ,  ij ) , and the child node ii of the source point s j is

coordinated as ( ii ,ii , ii ) , as given in Fig.A2. Based on Eq. (A4), Eq. (A3) can be

reformulated as follows

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N p  qii  iin Pn (cos( ii ))

 G0  xi , s  d   s    
j 1, j i n 1 ii 1 rijn 1
U  i Ai
0 . (A5)
Ai

To evaluate efficiently Eq. (A5), the following simplified conditions are introduced:

1) The range of influence A j is simplified as a round plane with characteristic

Aj
radius R j  with center s j ;


T
IP
2) The equivalent round plane is perpendicular to the outward normal n j at the

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source point s j as given in Fig. A3.

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ED
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Fig. A3. The equivalent range of influence A j .

CE

Based on above simplified conditions, the first part of Eq. (A.5) can be simplified
as
AC

2πr
 G0 xi , s ds    dr  2  x 2  Ri  x  ,
Ri 2
(A6)
Ai
0
x r
2 2  

as shown in Fig. A3. When x  0 , we have

 G x , s ds 
0 i
2

Ai
. (A7)
Ai Ri
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The second part of Eq. (A5) can hereby be simplified as

N p  qii  iin Pn (cos( ii )) N p

 
j 1, j i n 1 ii 1 rijn 1
  
j 1, j i n 1
jn , (A8)

when n  1 ,

 j1  0 , (A9)

T
when n  2 ,

IP

qii ii2 3 1 
qii ii2 3 2 1
 j2   3
( cos 2
( ii )  )   3
( sin (ij ) cos 2 ( ii )  )

CR
ii 1 rij 2 2 ii 1 rij 2 2
, (A10)
 R 4j 3sin 2 (ij )
r j 2
1 3 3 1
 3  0 r ( 2 sin (ij ) cos ( )  2 )drd  4r 3 ( 2  1)
2 2

rij

US
0 ij

where  ii  ij  ii , the equivalent range of influence A j is placed on x  s j  y

AN
plane, as given in Fig. A2. ij means the angle between vector xi s j and the normal

n j at the source point s j (i.e., z axis of Fig. A2).

M

It is noted that
ED

1 cos(kr )
lim  lim . (A11)
r 0 r r 0 r
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The OIF of the Laplace equation U 0i can serve as the OIF of the Helmholtz equation

U i , i.e.,
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U 0i  U i . (A12)
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Similarly, we can derive Eqs. (8)-(12).

Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the National Science Funds of China (Grant Nos.
11302069, 11372097, 11572111), the 111 Project (Grant No. B12032), the
Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant No.

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KYCX17_0488) and the Postgraduate Scholarship Program from the China

Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201706710107).

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Nomenclature

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IP
G basis function of 3D Helmholtz equation  2 Laplacian operator

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GSBM fundamental solutions of 3D Helmholtz equation  computational domain

GBKM general solutions of 3D Helmholtz equation. u ( xm ) known boundary values

M modified fundamental solution of Helmholtz equationUS  j unknown coefficients

AN
U i OIF of the 3D Helmholtz equation k wavenumber

R j characteristic radius of range of influence N boundary nodes number

M

kd nondimensional wavenumber  Computational boundary

ED

d the maximum diameter of the computational domain s j source point

1
J (kr) the ( n  )-order Bessel function of the first kind xi collocation point
PT

1
n
2
2

Pn (cos( )) the n -order Legendre polynomials.  adjustment parameter

CE

G0 fundamental solutions of 3D Laplace equation p truncation term

AC

U 0i OIF of the 3D Laplace equation A j range of influence

 ii child node of the source point s j Rerr average relative errors

qii weight value of the child node  ii , C convergence rate

rij distance between points s j and xi f frequency

(rij , ij ,  ij ) coordinate of the collocation point xi ii  s j  xi   ii

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( ii ,ii , ii ) coordinate of the child node  ii ii  ij  ii

T
IP
CR
US
AN
M
ED
PT
CE
AC

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