A study on the method of fundamental solutions using an image concept

In this paper, both analytical and semi-analytical solutions for Green’s functions are obtained by using the image method which can be seen as a special case of method of fundamental solutions (MFS). The image method is employed to solve the Green’s function for the annular, eccentric and half-plane Laplace problems. In addition, an analytical solution is derived for the fixed-free annular case. For the half-plane problem with a circular hole and an eccentric annulus, semi-analytical solutions are both obtained by using the image concept after determining the strengths of two frozen image points and a free constant by matching boundary conditions. It is found that two frozen images terminated at the two focuses in the bipolar coordinates for the problems with two circular boundaries. A boundary value problem of an eccentric annulus without sources is also considered. Error distribution is plotted after comparing with the analytical solution derived by Lebedev et al. using the bipolar coordinates. The optimal locations for the source distribution in the MFS are also examined by using the image concept. It is observed that we should locate singularities on the two focuses to obtain better results in the MFS. Besides, whether the free constant is required or not in the MFS is also studied. The results are compared well with the analytical solutions.