MAXWELL3, 3-D FEM Electromagnetism

1 - Description of program or function: MAXWELL3 is a linear, time domain, finite element code designed for simulation of electromagnetic fields interacting with three-dimensional objects. The simulation region is discretized into 6-sided, 8-nodded elements which need not form a logically regular grid. Scatterers may be perfectly conducting or dielectric. Restart capability and a Muer-type radiating boundary are included. MAXWELL3 can be run in a two-dimensional mode or on infinitesimally thin geometries. The output of time histories on surfaces, or shells, in addition to volumes, is allowed. Two post-processors are included - HIST2XY, which splits the MAXWELL3 history file into simple xy data files, and FFTABS, which performs fast Fourier transformations on the xy data. 2 - Method of solution: The numerical method requires that the model be discretized with a mesh generator. MAXWELL3 then uses the mesh and computes the time domain electric and magnetic fields by integrating Maxwell's divergence-free curl equations over time. The output from MAXWELL3 can then be used with a post-processor to get the desired information in a graphical form. The explicit time integration is done with a leap-frog technique that alternates evaluating the electric and magnetic fields at half time steps. This allows for centered time differencing accurate in second order. The algorithm is naturally robust and requires no parameters. 3 - Restrictions on the complexity of the problem: MAXWELL3 has no mesh generation capabilities. Anisotropic, nonlinear, and magnetic materials cannot be modeled. Material interfaces only account for dielectric changes and neglect any surface charges that would be present at the surface of a partially conducting material. The radiation boundary algorithm is only accurate for normally incident fields and becomes less accurate as the angle of incidence increases. Thus, only models using scattered fields should use the radiation boundary. This limits MAXWELL3's applicability to models incorporating directed fields such as unshielded transmission lines including microstrip waveguides