State-of-the-art finite-element methods for time-harmonic acoustics governed by the Helmholtz equation are reviewed. Four major current challenges in the field are specifically addressed: the effective treatment of acoustic scattering in unbounded domains, including local and nonlocal absorbing boundary conditions, infinite elements, and absorbing layers; numerical dispersion errors that arise in the approximation of short unresolved waves, polluting resolved scales, and requiring a large computational effort; efficient algebraic equation solving methods for the resulting complex-symmetric (non-Hermitian) matrix systems including sparse iterative and domain decomposition methods; and a posteriori error estimates for the Helmholtz operator required for adaptive methods. Mesh resolution to control phase error and bound dispersion or pollution errors measured in global norms for large wave numbers in finite-element methods are described. Stabilized, multiscale, and other wave-based discretization methods developed to reduce this error are reviewed. A review of finite-element methods for acoustic inverse problems and shape optimization is also given.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
March 2006
March 01 2006
A review of finite-element methods for time-harmonic acoustics
Lonny L. Thompson
Lonny L. Thompson
a)
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Clemson University
, Clemson, South Carolina 29634-0921
Search for other works by this author on:
a)
Electronic mail: lonny.thompson@ces.clemson.edu
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 1315–1330 (2006)
Article history
Received:
July 01 2005
Accepted:
December 12 2005
Citation
Lonny L. Thompson; A review of finite-element methods for time-harmonic acoustics. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 March 2006; 119 (3): 1315–1330. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2164987
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Sign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionPay-Per-View Access
$40.00