On the block wavelet transform applied to the boundary element method

Abstract This paper follows an earlier work [Commun. Numer. Methods Engng. 19 (2003) 387] on the application of wavelet transforms to the boundary element method, which shows how to reuse models stored in compressed form to solve new models with the same geometry but arbitrary load cases—the so-called virtual assembly technique. The extension presented in this paper involves a new computational procedure created to perform the required two-dimensional wavelet transforms by blocks, theoretically allowing the compression of matrices of arbitrary size. Details of the computer implementation that allows the use of this methodology for very large models or at high compression ratios are given. A numerical application shows a standard PC being used to solve a 131,072 DOF model, previously compressed, for 100 distinct load cases in less than 1 h or 33 s for each load case.