Analysing microwave devices using a symmetric coupling of finite and boundary elements

Abstract

This paper presents a symmetric coupling between the finite element and boundary element methods for analysing open microwave devices. The proposed finite element boundary element (FEBE) method is based on the E-field vector Helmholtz equation. Second-order hierarchical Curl-conforming vector finite elements over tetrahedrons are used to discretize the interior region. The boundary element (BE) truncation surface is discretized with the second-order divergence-conforming surface elements with triangular support. The symmetry of the BE part is restored through the application of the Calderon-projector. Moreover, the BE computations are accelerated using a single level QR algorithm. This reduces both memory and computational time. The resulted symmetric system of equations is solved with a very efficient preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCCG) method with a p-multiplicative Schwarz (pMUS) preconditioner. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.