A finite-volume, time-domain CEM code for unstructured-grids on parallel computers

Abstract

We describe a general‐purpose finite‐volume, time‐domain electromagnetic solver. The objective of the effort began as a modification to an existing computational fluid dynamics code, Cobalt60, to solve the equations of electromagnetism. The existing framework for handling geometries with unstructured grids and the parallel computing capability made the code conversion convenient and timely. The code implements the solution of the Maxwell “curl” equations. Results for a perfectly conducting spherical surface are presented and compare favorably with theory and other electromagnetic solvers. Example results are presented for complex geometries and tests were performed for other benchmark geometries. Preliminary computational scalability results for the code indicate good parallel efficiency (not shown). It remains an open question whether codes based on time‐domain methods will become computationally efficient to compete with frequency‐domain solvers.