On the sources placement in the method of fundamental solutions for time-dependent heat conduction problems

The method of fundamental solutions is a more and more popular meshless method for solving boundary or initial–boundary value problems. The most important issue in this method is the determination of the positions of the source points. The accuracy of the method depends strongly on the distribution of the source points. In this paper placement of these points for transient heat conduction problems is studied. The problems are initial–boundary value problems and they are considered in a time-space domain. Because of that, the placement of the source points differs from the classical distribution of the source points for boundary values problems. In the paper, four different possible sources distributions are considered for 1D, 2D and 3D transient heat conduction problems. The results show very good accuracy in case of the source points placed in a space much bigger than the considered region, additionally with the negative time coordinate.