Comparison of two open-source codes of the boundary element method for acoustic problems

Resumo

A comparison between two competing free and open-source codes of the boundary element method
(BEM) for internal and external acoustic problems is carried out in this work. The BEM programs used were
Bempp-cl and BB. While Bempp-cl is an well established Python program developed at University College London
and the University of Cambridge, BB is a more recent code, developed at the University of Bras ́ılia, written in Julia
language. For the mesh generation, an also open-source program, Gmsh, was used. Initially, internal problems on
a cubic geometry were solved, both in terms of response analysis in the resonant frequencies as well as frequency
response analysis for the three first modes of the problem. For the same problem, a processing time analysis was
also conducted, in order to assess the efficiency of the mentioned programs. The solutions obtained by the two
programs were compared with each other as well as with analytical solutions, when available. The results for the
cubic geometry shown that both programs were able to successfully predict the behavior for the modes and for
the frequency analysis, with a satisfactory time consuming. Therefore, the use of BEM and, specially, of both
programs studied in this article are very powerful tools, freely available, to solve large and complex engineering
problems, with great efficiency and accuracy.