A Three-Dimensional Finite-Difference Solution of the External Response of an Aircraft to a Complex Transient EM Environment: Part I-The Method and Its Implementation

Experimental charge and current measurements have recently been performed on an aircraft when it was exposed to the transient electromagnetic fi´eld of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator. These new data allow a test of the predictive capabilities of the three-dimensional finite-difference method for realistic aircraft simulator test problems. In the paper, the workings of the threedimensional finite-difference method and its required inputs and sensitivity to variations in the inputs are discussed in sufficient detail to enable others to employ the method. A companion paper compares the experimental measurements to predictions for a large variety of measurement locations. Agreement is shown to be good for all major response measurements and satisfactory for a number of other measurements.