Finite Elements with Nonreflecting Boundary Conditions Formulated by the Helmholtz Integral Equation

In the proposed approach, an acoustic domain is split into two parts by an arbitrary artificial boundary. The surrounding medium around the vibrating surface is discretized with finite elements up to the artificial boundary. The constraint equation specified on the artificial boundary is formulated with the Helmholtz integral equation straightforwardly, in which the source surface coincides with the vibrating surface discretized with boundary elements. To ensure the uniqueness of the numerical solution, the composite Helmholtz integral equation proposed by Burton and Miller was adopted. Due to the avoidance of singularity problems inherent in the boundary element formulation, this method is very efficient and easy to implement in an isoparametric element environment. It should be noted that the present method also can be applied to thin-body problems by using quarter-point elements.