Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/R55542/01
Title:	Advanced Computational Methods for High Frequency Electromagnetics
Principal Investigator:	Bluck, Dr MJ
Other Investigators:	Walker, Dr S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Mechanical Engineering
Organisation:	Imperial College London
Scheme:	Fast Stream
Starts:	01 June 2002	Ends:	31 May 2005	Value (£):	62,283
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Parallel Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Electronics
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Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
ncreasingly demanding problems in electromagnetic field analysis have led to a corresponding effort to develop computational tools to tackle them. The finite element approach, with its flexible representation of geometry and unstructured grids, and its relative ease of meshing, has received increasing attention of late. Many FE analyses suffer from the 'spurious modes' problem, with additional, non-physical penalty terms introduced to inhibit them. In the time domain, explicit methods also constrain timestep choice, which in realistic problems, with locally refined meshing, can impose severe cost penalties. We have recently developed novel finite element time domain (FETD) methods which eliminate both these problems. They are based upon re-expression of the problem in the language of differential forms, and employ basis function sets which satisfy naturally the required completeness properties, with proper modelling of the associated differential operators. No spurious mode difficulties are found, with no recourse to penalty terms needed. The treatment adopted is implicit, provably stable, and removes the Courant-type constraints, allowing arbitrary choice of timestep. The present proposal is to build upon these mathematical foundations, to develop from them a computational tool suitable for large scale 'industrial' analyses, employing modern distributed processor architectures. The specific areas for further research required to achieve this include; (i) Domain decomposition strategies, and associated interprocessor communications, tuned for FETD - EM, (ii) Characterisation of the performance of candidate iterative solvers and associated pre-conditioners (the dominant cost in the analysis), with particular reference to the interaction of the solver / preconditioner combination with the decomposition, (iii) extension of the analysis to incorporate anisotropic materials, of increasing practical importance.
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