A fast-domain decomposition method for the solution of electromagnetic scattering by large objects

A nonoverlapping domain decomposition method is proposed for the finite element solution of the scattering problem by electrically large, inhomogeneous, infinite cylinders of arbitrary cross section. To minimize the size of the total computational domain, a second-order-absorbing boundary condition (ABC) is applied upon an outer boundary of arbitrary shape which may be conformal to the surface of the scatterer. This domain is then partitioned into concentric subdomains circumscribing the object. A second-order transmission condition, derived from the ABC, is prescribed upon the interfaces between two adjacent subdomains. This particular configuration is responsible for the fast convergence of the domain decomposition iterative algorithm, which is parallelizable. Numerical results obtained with a nonparallelized computer code are presented, which emphasize the superiority of this technique in terms of memory storage requirements and computing times over the standard finite element approach, as well as over the rigorous hybrid finite element-integral equation formulation.