Adaptive Node Techniques for Maxwell's Equations
D.W. Hewett · University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · 1999
The computational mesh in numerical simulation provides a framework on which to monitor the spatial dependence of function and their derivatives. Spatial mesh is therefore essential to the ability to integrate systems in time without loss of fidelity. Several philosophies have emerged to provide such fidelity (Eulerian, Lagrangian, Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian ALE, Adaptive Mesh Refinement AMR, and adaptive node generation/deletion). Regardless of the type of mesh, a major difficulty is in setting up the initial mesh. Clearly a high density of grid points is essential in regions of high geometric complexity and/or regions of intense, energetic activity. For some problems, mesh generation is such a crucial part of the problem that it can take as much computational effort as the run itself, and these tasks are now taking weeks of massively parallel CPU time. Mesh generation is no less crucial to electromagnetic calculations. In fact EM problem set up can be even more challenging without the clues given by fluid motion in hydrodynamic systems. When the mesh is advected with the fluid (Lagrangian), mesh points naturally congregate in regions of high activity. Similarly in AMR algorithms, strong gradients in the fluid flow are one of the triggers for mesh refinement. In the hyperbolic Maxwell's equations without advection, mesh point placement/motion is not so intuitive. In fixed geometry systems, it at least feasible to finely mesh high leverage, geometrically challenged areas. For other systems, where the action takes place far from the boundaries and, likely, changes position in time, the options are limited to either using a high resolution (expensive) mesh in all regions that could require such resolution or adaptively generating nodes to resolve the physics as it evolves. The authors have developed a new time of adaptive node technique for Maxwell's equations to deal with this set of issues.