EDGE ELEMENTS AND WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU

Edge elements are finite elements whose degrees of freedom are associated with edges rather than with nodes. They have been used to compute 3D vector electromagnetic fields in both power and microwave engineering. They have several useful properties: they allow the normal component of the vector to be discontinuous from one element to the next; they are better at handling field singularities; they eliminate spurious modes; they permit a unique separation of a vector field into the gradient of a scalar and a remaining part. Various tetrahedral and hexahedral edge elements exist, and triangular and quadrilateral edge elements have been developed for 2D problems.