FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD FOR STATIONARY AND STATIC ELECTROMAGNETIC-FIELDS

A finite element method is described for computing static and stationa ry electric and magnetic fields directly in terms of the electric and magnetic field strength. The conditions at interfaces between differen t media and on the outer boundary are modeled pointwise exactly. The e rror in modeling the curl and divergence equations that correspond to interface free subdomains is minimized by means of a weighted residual s method. In order to be able to satisfy the conditions at interfaces between different media, use is made of a combination of nodal and edg e elements. The validity of our approach is illustrated by solving a p roblem that has practical value for close contact magnetic recording. The numerical results are compared with analytical solutions that are available for this model. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.