COUPLED FINITE-ELEMENT AND BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD IN ELECTROMAGNETICS

An efficient numerical method called coupled finite and boundary element method (CFBM) is described and developed to treat electromagnetic scattering and microwave circuits problems. The proposed approach is based upon the coupling of the finite element and boundary element methods. The respective merits of these methods are extracted to yield much faster solutions and to enhance computational efficiency. A general procedure starts from a general point of view, and the validity and efficiency of the method are demonstrated in the cases of scattering from arbitrary dielectric cylinders, arbitrary dielectric coated conducing cylinders and analysis of waveguide components. The applications of CFBM to microwave planar circuits are also demonstrated. Comparisons of the CFBM results with those obtained using the finite element method, the boundary element method or experimental results are made and shown to be in good agreement. Special attention is paid to the scattering problems at the resonant frequency, and results show that the proposed method does not suffer from the non-uniqueness.