OPTIMIZED ENTIRE-DOMAIN MOMENT-METHOD ANALYSIS OF 3D DIELECTRIC SCATTERERS

When compared with commonly used subdomain moment-method analysis, ent ire-domain analysis of 3D dielectric scatterers results in a greatly r educed number of unknowns. Unfortunately, the expressions for matrix e lements tend to be quite complicated and their calculation extremely t ime-consuming if evaluated directly. It is shown in the paper that, in a Galerkin-type solution with large trilinear hexahedral basic volume elements and three-dimensional polynomial approximation of volume cur rent inside them, these expressions can be manipulated analytically fo r optimized rapid non-redundant integration. Consequently, a method fo r the analysis of 3D dielectric scatterers is obtained that is efficie nt, rapidly converging with increasing degree of approximation for cur rent, remarkably accurate and very moderate in computer memory require ments. The applicability of the method of moments is thereby extended to bodies of electrical sizes greatly exceeding those that can be deal t with by subdomain methods. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.