Higher-order correction to the FDTD method based on the integral form of Maxwell’s equations

We propose a higher-order correction to the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method based on the integral form of Maxwell’s equations. We calculate the errors between the numerical and analytic solutions. Numerical solutions are obtained by the original method and our corrected FDTD method to show that the accuracy and reliability of our corrected FDTD method is superior to that of the original FDTD method.     

Numerical modelling of pulsar magnetospheres

Numerical models used in the study of the pulsar magnetosphere are described: a vacuum model based only on Maxwell's equations and a more realistic model employing both Maxwell's and relativistic two-fluid equations. The general approach to solving the chosen sets of partial differential equations is outlined and the possible boundary conditions are examined. Numerical methods suitable for solving Maxwell's equations are discussed and a method is developed for solving the combined fluid plus Maxwell model. Results are presented and discussed and the possible improvements in the approach are indicated.     

Numerical convergence and physical fidelity analysis for Maxwell’s equations in metamaterials

In this paper, we develop a leap-frog mixed finite element method for solving Maxwell’s equations resulting from metamaterials. Our scheme is similar to the popular Yee’s FDTD scheme used in electrical engineering community, and is preferable for three dimensional large scale modeling since no storage of the large coefficient matrix is needed. Our scheme is proved to obey the Gauss’s law automatically if the initial fields satisfy that. Furthermore, the conditional stability and optimal error estimate for the proposed scheme are proved. To our best knowledge, we are unaware of any other publications devoted to the convergence analysis of this leap-frog explicit scheme for Maxwell’s equations even in a simple medium, while our results for metamaterials automatically reduce to the standard Maxwell’s equations in vacuum by dropping some terms resulting from the constitutive equations. Numerical results confirming our analysis are presented.     

Study of an implicit scheme for integrating Maxwell's equations

We study theoretically and numerically an implicit scheme for solving Maxwell's equations. Space discretization is obtained by the finite element method, while Newmark's scheme provides the time discretization.     

Superconvergence and Extrapolation Analysis of a Nonconforming Mixed Finite Element Approximation for Time-Harmonic Maxwell’s Equations

In this paper, a nonconforming mixed finite element approximating to the three-dimensional time-harmonic Maxwell’s equations is presented. On a uniform rectangular prism mesh, superclose property is achieved for electric field E and magnetic filed H with the boundary condition E×n=0 by means of the asymptotic expansion. Applying postprocessing operators, a superconvergence result is stated for the discretization error of the postprocessed discrete solution to the solution itself. To our best knowledge, this is the first global superconvergence analysis of nonconforming mixed finite elements for the Maxwell’s equations. Furthermore, the approximation accuracy will be improved by extrapolation method.     

The new numerical method for solving the system of two-dimensional Burgers’ equations

In this paper, the system of two-dimensional Burgers’ equations are solved by local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) finite element method. The new method is based on the two-dimensional Hopf–Cole transformations, which transform the system of two-dimensional Burgers’ equations into a linear heat equation. Then the linear heat equation is solved by the LDG finite element method. The numerical solution of the heat equation is used to derive the numerical solutions of Burgers’ equations directly. Such a LDG method can also be used to find the numerical solution of the two-dimensional Burgers’ equation by rewriting Burgers’ equation as a system of the two-dimensional Burgers’ equations. Three numerical examples are used to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method.     

Influence of reentry turbulent plasma fluctuation on EM wave propagation

Electromagnetic wave propagation in turbulent plasma media during reentry is being investigated. Emphasis is placed on the effects of electron density fluctuations on electromagnetic wave propagation. The objective of this paper is to specify the source of noise in electromagnetic signal reception due to turbulence in the flow about a high velocity flight vehicle. A review of existing ground and flight test data is conducted, including electron density fluctuation measurements. Analytical algorithms deduced from first principles are being developed and validated with experimental measurements. A Navier-Stokes model, three-dimensional parabolized Navier-Stokes, and a coupled boundary-layer and inviscid flow codes are used to estimate the mean and variance of the electron density on the frustum and at the vehicle’s base region. Analytical and numerical solutions solving Maxwell’s equations and a commercial off the shelf code are used to estimate the phenomena of electromagnetic wave propagation in inhomogeneous plasma media. Results include the estimation of signal attenuation and phase shift induced by the mean electron density and by electron density fluctuations in the flowfield. Comparisons are made between the predictions and available data.     

Iterative addition of parallel temperature effects to finite-difference simulation of radio-frequency wave propagation in plasmas

Accurate simulations of how radio frequency (RF) power is launched, propagates, and absorbed in a magnetically confined plasma is a computationally challenging problem that for which no comprehensive approach presently exists. The underlying physics is governed by the Vlasov–Maxwell equations, and characteristic length scales can vary by three orders of magnitude. Present algorithms are, in general, based on finding the constituative relation between the induced RF current and the RF electric field and solving the resulting set of Maxwell’s equations. These linear equations use a Fourier basis set that is not amenable to multi-scale formulations and have a large dense coefficient matrix that requires a high-communications overhead factorization technique. Here the use of operator splitting to separate the current and field calculations, and a low-overhead iterative solver leads to an algorithm that avoids these issues and has the potential to solve presently intractable problems due to its data-parallel and favorable scaling characteristics. We verify the algorithm for the iterative addition of parallel temperature effects for a 1D electron Langmuir by reproducing the solution obtained with the existing Fourier kinetic RF code aorsa (Jaeger et al., 2008).     

Non-Linear PML Equations for Time Dependent Electromagnetics in Three Dimensions

In this paper we present a new set of non-linear PML equations for the multi-dimensional Maxwell’s equation and show that they are strongly well posed and temporally stable. Numerical examples demonstrate the validity of the new method.     

Numerical approximation of flow induced vibrations of channel walls

In this paper the numerical method for solution of an aeroelastic model describing the interactions of air flow with vocal folds is described. The flow is modelled by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations spatially discretized with the aid of the stabilized finite element method. The motion of the computational domain is treated with the aid of Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method. The structure motion is described by an equivalent system with two degrees of freedom governed by a system of ordinary differential equations and discretized in time with the aid of an implicit multistep method and strongly coupled with the flow model. The influence of inlet/outlet boundary conditions is studied. The numerical analysis is performed and compared to the related results from literature.     

A composite numerical scheme for the numerical simulation of coupled Burgers’ equation

In this work, a composite numerical scheme based on finite difference and Haar wavelets is proposed to solve time dependent coupled Burgers’ equation with appropriate initial and boundary conditions. Time derivative is discretized by forward difference and then quasilinearization technique is used to linearize the coupled Burgers’ equation. Space derivatives discretization with Haar wavelets leads to a system of linear equations and is solved using Matlab7.0. Convergence analysis of proposed scheme exhibits that the error bound is inversely proportional to the resolution level of the Haar wavelet. Finally, the adaptability of proposed scheme is demonstrated by numerical experiments and shows that the present composite scheme offers better accuracy in comparison with other existing numerical methods.     

Asynchronous algorithms for poisson's equation with nonlinear boundary conditions

Poisson's equation with nonlinear boundary conditions is discretized with the method of lines to obtain a system of second order differential equations with multi-point boundary conditions. This differential system is converted, using invariant imbedding for each one-dimensional problem, into a fixed point problem and then the asynchronous algorithms are applied.     

A Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Linear Symmetric Hyperbolic Systems in Inhomogeneous Media

The Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method provides a powerful tool for approximating hyperbolic problems. Here we derive a new space-time DG method for linear time dependent hyperbolic problems written as a symmetric system (including the wave equation and Maxwell’s equations). The main features of the scheme are that it can handle inhomogeneous media, and can be time-stepped by solving a sequence of small linear systems resulting from applying the method on small collections of space-time elements. We show that the method is stable provided the space-time grid is appropriately constructed (this corresponds to the usual time-step restriction for explicit methods, but applied locally) and give an error analysis of the scheme. We also provide some simple numerical tests of the algorithm applied to the wave equation in two space dimensions (plus time).This revised version was published online in July 2005 with corrected volume and issue numbers.     

Overlapping Yee FDTD Method on Nonorthogonal Grids

We propose a new overlapping Yee (OY) method for solving time-domain Maxwell’s equations on nonorthogonal grids. The proposed method is a direct extension of the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method to irregular grids. The OY algorithm is stable and maintains second-order accuracy of the original FDTD method, and it overcomes the late-time instability of the previous FDTD algorithms on nonorthogonal grids. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the accuracy, stability, convergence and efficiency of the OY method.     

Numerical modeling of two-phase transonic flow

Our work is aimed at the development of numerical method for the modeling of transonic flow of wet steam including condensation/evaporation phase change. We solve a system of PDE’s consisting of Euler or Navier-Stokes equations for the mixture of vapor and liquid droplets and transport equations for the integral parameters describing the droplet size spectra. Numerical method is based on a fractional step technique due to the stiff character of source terms, i.e. we solve separately the set of homogenous PDE’s by the finite volume method and the remaining set of ODE’s either by explicit Runge-Kutta or implicit Euler method. The finite volume method is based on the Lax-Wendroff scheme with conservative artificial dissipation terms for structured grid. We also note result achieved by recently developed finite volume method with VFFC scheme. We discuss numerical results of steady and unsteady two-phase transonic flow in 2D nozzle, 2D and 3D turbine cascade and 2D turbine stage with moving rotor cascade.     

A contact force model considering constant external forces for impact analysis in multibody dynamics

The adjoint method is an elegant approach for the computation of the gradient of a cost function to identify a set of parameters. An additional set of differential equations has to be solved to compute the adjoint variables, which are further used for the gradient computation. However, the accuracy of the numerical solution of the adjoint differential equation has a great impact on the gradient. Hence, an alternative approach is the discrete adjoint method, where the adjoint differential equations are replaced by algebraic equations. Therefore, a finite difference scheme is constructed for the adjoint system directly from the numerical time integration method. The method provides the exact gradient of the discretized cost function subjected to the discretized equations of motion.     

Dynamic optimization of large scale systems: Case study

We present the analysis of the steady state backoff problem with state and dynamic constraints of a non-linear chemical process described by almost 3000 differential algebraic equations. The dynamic optimization is carried out using a new approach based on an SQP algorithm for semi-infinite non-linear programming problems. The system equations are integrated with an implicit Runge-Kutta method and 'reduced' gradients are evaluated by adjoint equations. The high performance of the algorithm is analysed and compared to fully non-linear programming proposals in which discretized system equations are treated as general non-linear equality constraints.     

A coordinate transformation approach for efficient repeated solution of Helmholtz equation pertaining to obstacle scattering by shape deformations

A computational model is developed for efficient solutions of electromagnetic scattering from obstacles having random surface deformations or irregularities (such as roughness or randomly-positioned bump on the surface), by combining the Monte Carlo method with the principles of transformation electromagnetics in the context of finite element method. In conventional implementation of the Monte Carlo technique in such problems, a set of random rough surfaces is defined from a given probability distribution; a mesh is generated anew for each surface realization; and the problem is solved for each surface. Hence, this repeated mesh generation process places a heavy burden on CPU time. In the proposed approach, a single mesh is created assuming smooth surface, and a transformation medium is designed on the smooth surface of the object. Constitutive parameters of the medium are obtained by the coordinate transformation technique combined with the form-invariance property of Maxwell’s equations. At each surface realization, only the material parameters are modified according to the geometry of the deformed surface, thereby avoiding repeated mesh generation process. In this way, a simple, single and uniform mesh is employed; and CPU time is reduced to a great extent. The technique is demonstrated via various finite element simulations for the solution of two-dimensional, Helmholtz-type and transverse magnetic scattering problems.     

Adaptive boundary control of a flexible marine installation system

In this paper, boundary control of a marine installation system is developed to position the subsea payload to the desired set-point and suppress the cable’s vibration. Using Hamilton’s principle, the flexible cable coupled with vessel and payload dynamics is described as a distributed parameter system with one partial differential equation (PDE) and two ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Adaptive boundary control is proposed at the top and bottom boundaries of the cable, based on Lyapunov’s direct method. Considering the system parametric uncertainty, the boundary control schemes developed achieve uniform boundedness of the steady state error between the boundary payload and the desired position. The control performance of the closed-loop system is guaranteed by suitably choosing the design parameters. Simulations are provided to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed control.     

Block constrained versus generalized Jacobi preconditioners for iterative solution of large-scale Biot’s FEM equations

Generalized Jacobi (GJ) diagonal preconditioner coupled with symmetric quasi-minimal residual (SQMR) method has been demonstrated to be efficient for solving the 2 × 2 block linear system of equations arising from discretized Biot’s consolidation equations. However, one may further improve the performance by employing a more sophisticated non-diagonal preconditioner. This paper proposes to employ a block constrained preconditioner P_c that uses the same 2 × 2 block matrix but its (1, 1) block is replaced by a diagonal approximation. Numerical results on a series of 3-D footing problems show that the SQMR method preconditioned by P_c is about 55% more efficient time-wise than the counterpart preconditioned by GJ when the problem size increases to about 180,000 degrees of freedom. Over the range of problem sizes studied, the P_c-preconditioned SQMR method incurs about 20% more memory than the GJ-preconditioned counterpart. The paper also addresses crucial computational and storage issues in constructing and storing P_c efficiently to achieve superior performance over GJ on the commonly available PC platforms.