Boundary element methods in transport phenomena

Boundary element methods (BEM) have gained wide acceptance in the areas of engineering analysis related to potential problems and elasticity. These techniques are also being increasingly used for the analysis of heat and mass transfer problems, and more recently in flow analysis or momentum transport. The widespread use of the method is due to a number of its advantages, such as a reduction of dimensionality for linear differential equation, ease of coding and smaller memory requirements, high accuracy and computational efficiency. Further, the method has undergone rapid developments which have expanded its domain of applications. The descriptive use of the method for the solution of problems encountered in the areas of transport phenomena has been, however, confined to journals and edited monographs, as textbook coverage has not been available. The purpose of this work is to provide a textbook which fills this gap. The book will provide the reader with a complete understanding of the basis of the method and the capability to numerically solve a wide range of transport phenomena problems, especially in heat and mass transfer. The book can be used as a stand-alone textbook for a one-semester course on this subject, or could be used as a supplement to the traditional transport phenomena texts in a regular course to reinforce the numerical aspects of the subject. The book can also be used as a self-study tool for researchers involved in engineering analysis. Thus, the novices in BEM will benefit from the clarity of presentation, while the experts in the art of modeling will find the breadth of applications very useful. The organization of the book comprises of two sets of topics: (i) numerical methods of solution of ordinary and partial differential equations, covered in Chapters 4 to 9; (ii) applications to transport processes, covered in Chapter 10 and 11. Chapters 1 to 3 provide the introductory material. A number of examples are provided throughout the text to illustrate the ideas and methods of the solution.