Time domain finite element method analysis of multi-conductor transmission lines

This paper presents the finite element time domain (FETD) model for numerical solution of the multi-conductor transmission line (MTL) problem. Based on the finite element method (FEM) and the generalised trapezoidal rule, a novel numerical procedure for solution of a system of the telegraph equations is presented. The method presented here is an extension of the method proposed in previous research, where electromagnetic transients in single networks with linear lossy transmission lines have been modelled. In order to show the principles of this numerical method, for sake of simplicity, we restrict the FETD model of the MTL problem only to the low frequency regime. The proposed numerical method has been tested and compared to the analytical and FDTD solutions, and excellent correlation has been demonstrated. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.