Plate modeling of wire structures

The thin-wire analysis is usually performed by using the following assumptions: a) the circumferential current component is neglected, b) the axial current component is uniform around the circumference of the wire, and c) the so-called reduced kernel is used. It is considered that these assumptions are valid if two conditions are satisfied: 1) the wire radius is much less than a free space wavelength, and 2) the wire-to-wire separation exceeds several wire diameters. These assumptions can also be applied for determination of current distribution in the case of thick antennas of revolution. However, in the case when these conditions are not satisfied a plate model of the wire structure should be made. There are many cases when: a) a wire model gives acceptable results, but cannot give precise results, b) a wire model gives good results up to some frequency, but not above this frequency, etc. In all these cases it is convenient to check the analysis based on a wire model by the analysis based on a plate model. Hence, an algorithm for the automatic transformation of a wire model into a plate model can be very helpful. The main goal of this paper is to present such an algorithm and show its usefulness. As an example the authors model a dipole antenna array.