New modelling aspects in the Method of Lines

In this contribution new developments in the Methods of Lines (MoL) are shown, which make the method to a competitive tool for the analysis of cascaded structures with repetitive sections. The MoL is very well suited for the analysis of layered or cascaded elements, as it uses only a two-dimensional discretization, within the layers or sections analytic calculation is used. Nevertheless, due to the required eigenmode analysis the needed computation time needed is still high compared to commercial tools. Several approaches have been developed in order to make the MoL more efficient, here some of these features have been combined to a new algorithm. First Floquet`s theorem is efficiently used to analyze structures with repeating sections without significant increase in computation time. The number of employed modes is reduced by applying the principle of localized and accessible modes. Last an additional but fast 2D analysis is used to increase the accuracy in determining the loss of lossy conductors. A comparison is made for a distributed MEMS transmission line (DMTL) with up to 20 sections, comparing the results of the new MoL algorithm with commercial tools.