A dual-field domain-decomposition method for the time-domain finite-element analysis of large finite arrays

A novel dual-field time-domain finite-element domain-decomposition method is presented for an efficient and broadband numerical simulation of electromagnetic properties of large finite arrays. Instead of treating the entire array as a single computation domain, the method considers each array element as a smaller subdomain and computes both the electric and magnetic fields inside each subdomain. Adjacent subdomains are related to each other by the equivalent surface currents on the subdomain interfaces in an explicit manner. Furthermore, the method exploits the identical geometry of the array elements and further reduces the memory requirement and CPU time. The proposed method is highly efficient for the simulation of large finite arrays. Numerical stability and computational performance of the method are discussed. Several radiation examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the method.