MultiFEBE

ME-ST-EL-001 [TUTORIAL]
Plain strain square (BEM model)

J.D.R. Bordón
Á.G. Vega-Artiles
June 2022

Contents
1 Problem description 1

2 Preamble about the BEM and MultiFEBE 2

3 Pre-processing 3
3.1 Gmsh format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1.1 GEO file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1.2 MSH file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2 Native format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3 Input data file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4 Post-processing 9
4.1 Nodal solutions file (*.nso) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2 Gmsh results file (*.pos) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

5 Results and discussion 11

6 Modifications 13
6.1 Higher number of elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.2 Higher order elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.3 SBIE formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1 Problem description
In this first tutorial, a static analysis of a plain strain elastic square is performed using the Boundary
Element Method (BEM), i.e. boundary elements. Figure 1 shows the geometry, required material
properties and boundary conditions, where E is the Young’s modulus, ν is the Poisson’s ratio, L is the
square side length and P is the load. Note that self-weight is not considered. The analytical solution
to this problem is easily obtained, which results are the following displacement and stress fields:

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 (1 + ν)(1 − 2ν)
u1 = P x1 (1)
E(1 − ν)
u2 = 0 (2)
σ11 = P (3)
ν
σ22 = P (4)
1−ν
σ12 =0 (5)

from which it can be checked that tractions ti = σij nj (nj are the components of the outward
unit normal components) obviously verify the boundary conditions. Displacement field is linear along
x1 -direction and constant (null) along x2 -direction. Also, the only non-null stresses (σ11 and σ22 )
are constant. Therefore, numerical solution using linear or higher order elements must recover the
analytical solution.
The problem is solved for L = 1 m, E = 1 N/m2 , ν = 0.25 and P = 1 N/m2 and the results are
the following:
u1 = 0.83x1 m; u2 = 0; σ11 = 1 N/m2 ; σ22 = 0.3 N/m2 ; σ12 = 0.

x2

L E,
P

x1

Figure 1: Problem layout.

2 Preamble about the BEM and MultiFEBE

The meshing phisolosophy is somewhat different between Boundary Element Method and the Finite
Element Method (FEM). The more obvious and important difference is the fact that only the dis-
cretization of the boundary of each region1 is required, except if body loads or other special internal
features are present in the problem. That is: one-dimensional (line) elements are required in two-
dimensional models, and two-dimensional (surface) elements are required in three-dimensional models.
Another important difference is the presence of the traction vector components as nodal degrees of
freedom along with the displacement vector components. This has important implications regarding
discretization, because, while the displacements field is continuous along the boundary of any given
1 We use the term “region” as a synonym of “sub-domain”, i.e. the whole problem domain is divided into one or more

“regions”.

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region, traction vector depends on the unit normal, which can be discontinuous. Therefore, unlike the
FEM, which has an intuitive continuous volume discretization, the BEM requires taking into account
additional considerations when meshing.
There are several approaches when implementing the BEM. MultiFEBE uses conventional contin-
uous elements with multiple nodes2 where necessary, and an automatic (but configurable) collocation
approach which deals with the collocation of boundary integral equations. Even though in principle it
is possible to automate the process of doubling the nodes from the high-level information in the model,
this responsibility is left to the user for the sake of transparency and versatility, and also because the
rules governing this procedure are easy. Let Ω be a region, andS∂Ω its boundary. The boundary ∂Ω
must be subdivided into a set of boundaries Γj such that ∂Ω = Γj according to the following rules:

1. There must be at least a different boundary Γj for each part of the boundary ∂Ω with different
boundary (or interface) conditions. This is the initial obvious way of subdividing the whole
boundary according to the different physics of each boundary part.

2. Although not mandatory, it is recommended that each boundary is a connected space, i.e. each
boundary is made of one monolithic piece.
3. Each boundary Γj must have unique nodes, or, in other words, each node belongs to only one
boundary.

4. Nodes must be duplicated along sharp corner and edges.

In summary, the user should think of the whole mesh as a set of smooth independent meshes (one
per boundary).

3 Pre-processing
Pre-processing in MultiFEBE consists of defining the geometry and mesh of the problem. There are
three ways to do such definition: directly from the input file (mode = 0), from another file in the native
format (mode = 1) or from another file in the Gmsh MSH file format version 2.2 (mode = 2), where
syntax will be explained in the following subsections. Furthermore, as the problem will be solved using
only the BEM formulation, the approaches explained in the previous section will be applied.

3.1 Gmsh format

Gmsh [1, 2] is a finite element mesh generator and post-processor with its own language. The software
allows to create the geometry in a “bottom-up” manner, going from the most basic elements (points)
to the highest order elements (volumes) or in a “Constructive Solid Geometry” manner (boolean
operations) or with a combination of methodologies. Gmsh also allows to define the so-called “physical
groups” which are “groups of model entities” that gather elementary entities, where every entity must
have a unique tag. On the other hand, the file containing all this geometric definition is the *.geo file
whereas the mesh definition is in the *.msh file.

3.1.1 GEO file

The Gmsh language allows to define parameters to use later in the script and comments as every other
programming language. In this example two parameters are defined: the square side length (L) and
the mesh element size (es). Every point in the geometry can be specified by its coordinates (x y z)
and the mesh element size to use there with the function “Point” and every straight line of the model
is created with the function “Line” and its initial and final points. Then, with the function “Physical
Line” every line is converted into a single entity or physical entity with its own name. Furthermore,
it is worth noting that “if an expression defines a new entity, it is enclosed between parentheses but if
an expression refers to a previously defined entity, it is enclosed between braces.” [2]
2 Multiple nodes refer to the fact that there are several nodes belonging to different elements at the same location.

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 Finally, the mesh generation, the element order and the *.msh file saving can also be specified with
the expressions “Mesh + mesh dimension”, “SetOrder + element order” and “Save + name.msh”,
respectively.
The resulting *.geo file applied to the problem is the following:

L = 1; // Square side length

es = 1; // Element size

// Bottom
Point (1) = {0, 0, 0, es};
Point (2) = {L, 0, 0, es};
Line (1) = {1, 2};
Physical Line ("bottom", 1) = {1};

// Right
Point (3) = {L, 0, 0, es};
Point (4) = {L, L, 0, es};
Line (2) = {3, 4};
Physical Line ("right", 2) = {2};

// Top
Point (5) = {L, L, 0, es};
Point (6) = {0, L, 0, es};
Line (3) = {5, 6};
Physical Line ("top", 3) = {3};

// Left
Point (7) = {0, L, 0, es};
Point (8) = {0, 0, 0, es};
Line (4) = {7, 8};
Physical Line ("left", 4) = {4};

// Mesh generation
Mesh 1;
SetOrder 1;
Save "t1.msh";

3.1.2 MSH file

The *.msh file begins with a mandatory section about information of the file (MeshFormat) and fol-
lowing by the other sections. Here, three sections are used: the physical group names (PhysicalName),
the nodes (Nodes) and the elements (Elements).
In the section “PhysicalName”, all the physical entities of the model are defined. The first line
indicates the number of physical entities. Then, one line per physical entity indicating the physical
dimension, the tag and the name.
In the section “Nodes”, all the nodes of the model are defined. The first line indicates the number
of nodes. Then, one line per node indicating the node identifier and its coordinates (x y z).
In the section “Elements”, all the elements of the model are defined. The first line indicates the
number of elements. Then, one line per element indicating:

ˆ Element identifier.

ˆ Type of element.

ˆ Number of auxiliary tags.

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 Figure 2: Geometry with tangent vectors from the *.geo file.

ˆ List of tags, where the two first auxiliary tags are mandatory, and the first one corresponds to the
identifier of the physical entity to which the element belongs and the second one is the identifier
of the elementary model entity to which the element belongs. The rest of the tags are optional.
ˆ A list of identifiers corresponding to the nodes of the element.

For example, in this case, an element with the identifiers 3 1 2 3 3 5 6 corresponds to:

ˆ 3: element 3.
ˆ 1: type 1 (2-point line).
ˆ 2: it has 2 auxiliary tags.
ˆ 3: it belongs to the physical entity 3.
ˆ 3: it belongs to the line 3.
ˆ 5, 6: it connects the nodes 5 and 6.

Finally, the *.msh file can be obtain in File → Export or by following the instructions specified in
the section GEO file.
The resulting *.msh file applied to the problem is the following:

$MeshFormat
2.2 0 8
$EndMeshFormat

$PhysicalNames
4
1 1 "bottom"
1 2 "right"
1 3 "top"
1 4 "left"

5
$EndPhysicalNames

$Nodes
8
1 0 0 0
2 1 0 0
3 1 0 0
4 1 1 0
5 1 1 0
6 0 1 0
7 0 1 0
8 0 0 0
$EndNodes

$Elements
4
1 1 2 1 1 1 2
2 1 2 2 2 3 4
3 1 2 3 3 5 6
4 1 2 4 4 7 8
$EndElements

Figure 3: Mesh from the *.msh file.

3.2 Native format

By default, the mesh is read from the input file by writing the sections [nodes], [elements] and [parts]
in the native format as long as the user doesn’t specify another option. The format of sections is very
similar to the corresponding section of the Gmsh file format but here the section [parts] corresponds
to the section “PhysicalName”.
The native format applied to the problem is the following:

6
[nodes]
8
1 0 0 0
2 1 0 0
3 1 0 0
4 1 1 0
5 1 1 0
6 0 1 0
7 0 1 0
8 0 0 0

[elements]
4
1 1 1 1 1 2
2 1 1 2 3 4
3 1 1 3 5 6
4 1 1 4 7 8

[parts]
4
1 1 "bottom"
1 2 "right"
1 3 "top"
1 4 "left"

3.3 Input data file

Solving in MultiFEBE consists of running the software by specifying several options in the following
sections3 : [problem], [settings], [materials], [boundaries], [regions], [conditions over the boundaries],
etc.
The first part to configurate is the problem definition in the section [problem]. This example is a
2D static mechanical problem focused on plane strain.

[problem]
n = 2D
type = mechanics
subtype = plane_strain
analysis = static

Next step is to configurate the mesh. In this case, a mesh from Gmsh will be used so that it
is necessary to write the option number 2 and the document name obtained from it in the section
[settings]. However, if the mesh were going to be read from the input file, it would require to write the
sections [nodes], [elements] and [parts] instead.

[settings]
mesh_file_mode = 2 "t1.msh"

As the problem has just one material, the section [materials] will need two lines: a first line for the
number of materials in the model and a second line for the properties such as tag, type, E and ν.

[materials]
1
1 elastic_solid E 1. nu 0.25
3 See reference manual.

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 In the section [boundaries], it is necessary to specify the number of boundaries in the first line and
a line per boundary by indicating the boundary identifier, the identifier of the part that discretizes it,
and finally the boundary class. In this example there are 4 boundaries: boundary 1 is the part 1 of
the mesh, boundary 2 the part 2, boundary 3 the part 3 and boundary 4 the part 4 and all of them
are ordinary boundaries.

[boundaries]
4
1 1 ordinary
2 2 ordinary
3 3 ordinary
4 4 ordinary

The format of the section [regions] consists of a first line indicating the number of regions (1).
Furthermore, for each region there must be a block of data consisting of several lines of data. The
first one is the region identifier and the region class (discretization method) (1 be). As the region is
a BE region, then the second line indicates the number and list of boundaries (4 1 2 3 4). The third
line defines the material (material 1). Then, for a BE region, the fourth line defines the number and
list of BE body loads (0).

[regions]
1

1 be
4 1 2 3 4
material 1
0

In the section [conditions over be boundaries], all boundaries will be specify in global coordinates
because they are planar and their normal vectors are parallel to one of the global axes. As a 2D
problem, there are two lines for every boundary: a first line for the x direction and the second one
for the y direction, where the first number of every line indicates the type of condition (here 0 for
displacement and 1 for traction) and the second one its value.

[conditions over be boundaries]

boundary 1: 1 0.
0 0.

boundary 2: 1 1.
1 0.

boundary 3: 1 0.
0 0.

boundary 4: 0 0.
1 0.

The whole script applied to the problem is the following:

[problem]
n = 2D
type = mechanics
analysis = static

[settings]
mesh_file_mode = 2 "t1.msh"

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[materials]
1
1 elastic_solid E 1. nu 0.25

[boundaries]
4
1 1 ordinary
2 2 ordinary
3 3 ordinary
4 4 ordinary

[regions]
1

1 be
4 1 2 3 4
material 1
0

[conditions over be boundaries]

boundary 1: 1 0.
0 0.

boundary 2: 1 1.
1 0.

boundary 3: 1 0.
0 0.

boundary 4: 0 0.
1 0.

4 Post-processing
Post-processing in MultiFEBE consists of analysing the output files exported by the software. Output
files are written according to the type of analysis and model, as well as the input file export section. By
default the path and name of the output files is equal to the input file but with an additional extension.
The path and name can be changed when calling the solver from the terminal as explained in the
reference manual. There are three main native output files with the following additional extensions:
nodal solutions (*.nso), element solutions (*.eso) and stress resultant solutions (*.tot). There is also
one Gmsh output file (*.pos) which contains the case mesh and results (MSH file format version 2.2).
For the current example, only the nodal solutions and the Gmsh output file will be explained.

4.1 Nodal solutions file (*.nso)

This output file is a plain text file containing the nodal (node by node) results. The file starts with a set
of header lines whose first character is “#” (a comment line in GNU/Linux environments), describing
the file and the meaning of the main data columns.

# Program : multifebe
# Version : 1.0
# File_format : nso
# Specification: 1

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# Input_file : t1.dat
# Problem n : 2
# Description :
# Timestamp : 2022-01-16 23:38:58.324

# Columns Description
# 1-2 Step index and value.
# 3-5 Region id, class and type.
# 6-8 (if col 4 == 1) Boundary id, class and face.
# 6-8 (if col 4 == 2) Subregion id, number of DOF and 0.
# 9-11 Node id, x1 and x2.
# >=12 Node variables. Depend on the region class and type.

0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 0.0E+0 0.0E+0 -194.029E-9 0.000E+0 0.000E+0 -333.333E-3

0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1.0E+0 0.0E+0 833.333E-3 0.000E+0 0.000E+0 -333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 1.0E+0 0.0E+0 833.333E-3 311.627E-9 1.000E+0 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 2 1 1 4 1.0E+0 1.0E+0 833.333E-3 -311.627E-9 1.000E+0 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 3 1 1 5 1.0E+0 1.0E+0 833.333E-3 0.000E+0 0.000E+0 333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 3 1 1 6 0.0E+0 1.0E+0 -194.029E-9 0.000E+0 0.000E+0 333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 4 1 1 7 0.0E+0 1.0E+0 0.000E+0 -186.443E-9 -1.000E+0 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 4 1 1 8 0.0E+0 0.0E+0 0.000E+0 186.443E-9 -1.000E+0 0.000E+0

In this case, node variables are the last four numbers where the displacement in x and y direction
are the two first ones and the traction in x and y the remaining ones, respectively.

4.2 Gmsh results file (*.pos)

The Gmsh output file (*.pos) is a plain text containing the case mesh and results which can be read by
Gmsh. The structure of this file is similar to the *.msh file but with additional sections: “NodeData”
and “ElementData”. The section “NodeData” specifies nodal displacements and nodal traction in the
following order: the number of string tags, the name of the string tag corresponding to the results,
the number of real tags, the real tag (time value), the number of integer tags, the integer tags (time
steps, scalar field components and number of associated nodal values) and the node numbers with their
results. The section “ElementNodeData” specifies the stress tensor in the following order: number of
string tags, the name of the string tag corresponding to the results, the number of real tags, the real
tag, the number of integer tags, the integer tags and the element numbers with the number of nodes
per element value.
The whole file for the current example is in the online repository. However, the results for the third
and fourth node will be presented here.

"Nodal displacements UX,UY (FE, BE +n)"

1 -0.19402918E-06 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
2 0.83333367E+00 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
3 0.83333322E+00 0.31162731E-06 0.00000000E+00
4 0.83333322E+00 -0.31162731E-06 0.00000000E+00
5 0.83333367E+00 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
6 -0.19402918E-06 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
7 0.00000000E+00 -0.18644328E-06 0.00000000E+00
8 0.00000000E+00 0.18644328E-06 0.00000000E+00

"Traction TX,TY (BE +n)"

1 0.00000000E+00 -0.33333307E+00 0.00000000E+00
2 0.00000000E+00 -0.33333369E+00 0.00000000E+00
3 0.10000000E+01 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
4 0.10000000E+01 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00

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5 0.00000000E+00 0.33333369E+00 0.00000000E+00
6 0.00000000E+00 0.33333307E+00 0.00000000E+00
7 -0.10000000E+01 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
8 -0.10000000E+01 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00

Figure 4: Nodal displacement results with a displacement factor of 0.5 from the *.pos file.

5 Results and discussion

The comparison between the analytical and numerical solutions for the third and fourth nodes are
shown in Table 1. It can be seen that the numerical solution is in perfect agreement with the analytical
solution.

Node Variable Analytical solution Numerical solution

3 u1 0.83 0.833333
3 u2 0 0.311627 · 10−6
3 t1 1 1.000000
3 t2 0 0.000000
4 u1 0.83 0.833333
4 u2 0 −0.311627 · 10−6
4 t1 1 1.000000
4 t2 0 0.000000

Table 1: Results comparison.

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 Figure 5: Traction results from the *.pos file.

Figure 6: Stress tensor results from the *.pos file.

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6 Modifications
6.1 Higher number of elements
The process to obtain more elements for the mesh consists of specifying the element size in the *.geo
file. For example, to obtain two elements per boundary it is enough to set the element size as 0.5.

6.2 Higher order elements

The process to obtain higher order elements for the mesh consists of specifying the element order in
the *.geo file. For example, to obtain cuadratic elements it is enough to set a “2” in the expression
“SetOrder”.

6.3 SBIE formulation

It is worth mentioning that there is a discontinuity of displacement in the nodes shared by different
boundaries. However, the reason for this discrepancy is due to the formulation by default of the solver.
The best way to solve this issue is by means of a nodal collocation which can be specified with the
following option in the input file:

[bem formulation over boundaries]

boundary 1: sbie
boundary 2: sbie
boundary 3: sbie
boundary 4: sbie

The results with this formulation are the following:

0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 0.0E+0 0.0E+0 270.112E-18 0.000E+00 0.000E+0 -333.333E-3

0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1.0E+0 0.0E+0 833.333E-03 0.000E+00 0.000E+0 -333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 1.0E+0 0.0E+0 833.333E-03 96.375E-18 1.000E+0 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 2 1 1 4 1.0E+0 1.0E+0 833.333E-03 265.501E-18 1.000E+0 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 3 1 1 5 1.0E+0 1.0E+0 833.333E-03 0.000E+00 0.000E+0 333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 3 1 1 6 0.0E+0 1.0E+0 241.448E-18 0.000E+00 0.000E+0 333.333E-3
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 4 1 1 7 0.0E+0 1.0E+0 0.000E+00 -256.789E-18 -999.999E-3 0.000E+0
0 0.0E+0 1 1 2 4 1 1 8 0.0E+0 0.0E+0 0.000E+00 -25.547E-18 -999.999E-3 0.000E+0

References
[1] C. Geuzaine and J.-F. Remacle, “Gmsh: a three-dimensional finite element mesh generator with
built-in pre- and post-processing facilities.” International Journal for Numerical Methods in En-
gineering, Volume 79, Issue 11, pages 1309–1331, (2009).
[2] C. Geuzaine and J.-F. Remacle, “Gmsh.” http://gmsh.info/

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