Simulation of Sound Propagation Over an Infinite Impedance Plane by Using a Fast Multipole BEM

In this paper, a half-space fast multipole BEM is developed for the simulation of three-dimensional acoustic problems above an infinite impedance plane. The half-space impedance Green’s function involving a complex line source is used, so that both mass-like and spring-like impedance boundary conditions on the infinite plane can be explicitly satisfied and the infinite plane is not required to be discretized. The Burton–Miller method is employed to tackle the fictitious eigenfrequency problem involved in the conventional boundary integral equation method. Image relations of the multipole expansion coefficients are used and the half-space impedance Green’s function is modified to apply such relations to avoid calculating, translating and saving the multipole/local expansion coefficients in the image domain. An automatic integrator with adaptive interval subdivision is further adopted to calculate the line integral contained in the M2L translation formula accurately and efficiently. Numerical examples are given to show the validity and potential of the method.