VECTORS FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD BASED ON USE OF HYBRID EDGE ELEMENTS AND ITS APPLICATION TO 3-DIMENSIONAL ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE-GUIDE-DISCONTINUITY PROBLEMS

As a method for eliminating the spurious solution in the finite element analysis of three-dimensional waveguide discontinuity problems, the use of linear edge elements is most effective. However, the shape of the element has been limited to rectangular blocks and tetrahedral bodies. In this paper, a vector finite element method using triangular-prism elements is proposed and a formulation for three-dimensional waveguide discontinuity problems is carried out based on this method. The present triangular-prism elements can be used with a mixture of different edge elements so that the element division can be made highly efficient. The numerical examples demonstrate that the spurious solutions can be eliminated by using the triangular-prism elements as other edge element methods and also the hybrid use of edge elements provides a substantial reduction in the number of unknowns compared to the conventional analysis of using only one type of edge element.