Standard Course Syllabus Course Supervisor Date of Approval

Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Teixeira 1/07

817 Discrete Electromagnetics

2. CATALOG DESCRIPTION

Discretization techniques for Maxwell equations, and associated numerical methods, with emphasis on finite difference,

finite volumes, and finite elements.

Quarters of Offering Credits
Level Class Meeting

Wi Qtr (odd years). 3 G 3 cl.

Course Prerequisites

Prereq: 715. Not open to students with credit for 894K.

3. PREREQUISITES BY TOPIC

Maxwell's equations, electromagnetic theorems, scattering

Courses that require this as a direct prerequisite

none

4. Text(s) and Other Course Materials Author(s) Publisher

Computational Electromagnetics (Texts in Applied Bondeson, Rylander, and Springer

Mathematics), 2005 Ingelstrom

References (supplemental reading)

[1] Taflove and S. Hagness, Computational Electrodynamics: The Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, Artech House:

Boston, 2002.

[2] J.L. Volakis, A. Chatterjee and L.C. Kempel, Finite Element Method for Electromagnetics, IEEE Press: New York,

1998.

[3] P. Monk, Finite Element Methods for Maxwell's Equations, Oxford University Press, 2003.

5. COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. Students will learn discretization methods from first principles to solve Maxwell's equations in structured, unstructured,

regular, and irregular grids.

2. Students will study and develop computational examples to analyze the accuracy and limitations of each discretization

method.

3. Course material will be supplemented by reading from current technical literature.

6. TOPICS AND (# OF LECTURES)

1. Classification of partial differential equations into hyperbolic, parabolic, and elliptic types. Review of finite-difference

approximations: consistency, stability, and convergence. (2)

2. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method in homogeneous and complex media with emphasis on error analysis:

truncation, staircasing, and numerical dispersion errors. Courant criterion and stability analysis. Symplectic time

integration. Higher-order FDTD schemes. (6)

3. Finite-volume time-domain (FVTD) method. Semi-discrete analysis. Consistency and stability analysis. Origin of

unconditional instabilities. (3)

4. Absorbing boundary conditions (2)

5. Introduction to differential forms and cell complexes. Exterior calculus for an arbitrary lattice: exterior derivative,

boundary operator, incidence matrices, Hodge operator. (5)

6. Whitney forms and the vector finite-element method (FEM). Construction of discrete Hodge operators. Galerkin duality.

Finite-element time domain (FETD). From lumped FETD to FDTD. Sparse apporximations. (6)

7. De Rham complex, exact sequences, and the origin of spurious discrete solutions. Discrete Hodge-Helmholtz

decomposition. (2)

8. Higher order Whitney forms (2)

9. Non-conformal discretizations: application to FDTD subgridding and FE domain decomposition. (2)

7. CLASS MEETING PATTERN (For example, "3cl." means 3 48-min classes per week.)

3 cl.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 09:23 AM

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