HIGHER-ORDER INTERPOLATORY VECTOR BASES ON PRISM ELEMENTS

Triangular prism elements are useful in numerical solutions of electro magnetic field problems since they permit a three-dimensional (3-D) ge ometry to be generated by the extrusion of a triangular mesh, To date, however, few applications have employed vector basis functions on pri sm elements and the extension to distorted prisms reported in the lite rature apparently does not ensure cell-to-cell continuity, In this pap er, we define interpolatory higher order curl-and divergence-conformin g vector basis functions of the Nedelec type on prism elements, with e xtension to curved prisms, and discuss their completeness properties. Vector bases of arbitrary polynomial order are given and various resul ts to confirm the faster convergence of higher order functions are pre sented.