Abstract: The spline fictitious boundary element method （SFBEM） is a modified method to the conventional indirect
singular boundary element method．SFBEM not only retains the advantages of boundary element method‚but also avoids
solving singular integral equations．Improvements in the choice of trial functions and weight functions have also been
made in SFBEM．High accuracy and efficiency have been observed in the method．This paper presents the investigation
of numerical stability and error estimate of SFBEM in elastic plane problems．Several conclusions regarding the above is-
sues are obtained in this paper‚which lays a solid foundation for its practical application．

Key words: boundary element method, spline functions, spline fictitious boundary element method, numerical stability, error estimate