Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
We briefly review recently developed fast algorithms for the evaluation of electrostatic fields in composite materials consisting of a collection of piecewise homogeneous inclusions embedded in a uniform background. These algorithms are based on combining a suitable boundary integral equation with the fast multipole method and a conjugate gradient-like iterative method. The CPU time required grows linearly with the number of points in the discretization of the interface between the inclusions and the background material, bringing large-scale calculations within practical reach.