Modeling Floating Potential Conductors Using Discontinuous Galerkin Method

Isolated conductors appear in various electrostatic problems. In simulations, an equipotential condition with an undefined/floating potential value is enforced on the surface of isolated conductors. In this work, a numerical scheme making use of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is proposed to model such conductors in electrostatic problems. A floating-potential boundary condition, which involves the equipotential condition together with a total charge condition, is “weakly” enforced on the conductor surfaces through the numerical flux of the DG method. Compared to adaptations of the finite element method used for modeling conductors, this proposed method is more accurate, capable of imposing charge conditions, and simpler to implement. Numerical results, which demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method, are presented.