A FV-TD electromagnetic solver using adaptive Cartesian grids Original Research Article

A second-order finite-volume (FV) method has been developed to solve the time-domain (TD) Maxwell equations, which govern the dynamics of electromagnetic waves. The computational electromagnetic (CEM) solver is capable of handling arbitrary grids, including structured, unstructured, and adaptive Cartesian grids, which are topologically arbitrary. It is argued in this paper that the adaptive Cartesian grid is better than a tetrahedral grid for complex geometries considering both efficiency and accuracy. A cell-wise linear reconstruction scheme is employed to achieve second-order spatial accuracy. Second-order time accuracy is obtained through a two-step Runge–Kutta scheme. Issues on automatic adaptive Cartesian grid generation such as cell-cutting and cell-merging are discussed. A multi-dimensional characteristic absorbing boundary condition (MDC-ABC) is developed at the truncated far-field boundary to reduce reflected waves from this artificial boundary. The CEM solver is demonstrated with several test cases with analytical solutions.