Evaluation of parallel computing techniques in the analysis of EMC problems

A commercial electromagnetic analysis code, which is based on the finite difference time domain technique (FDTD), has been parallelised as part of PEPSE, a collaborative project which was supported by the European Union under the Framework III programme. As part of the associated dissemination project (PEPSE/D), MIRA has undertaken an evaluation of this code for EMC applications. This evaluation was based on a study of the performance of a large semi-anechoic chamber lined with pyramidal absorbers. It is known from practical measurements that undesirable resonances can occur in this type of chamber, and the analysis of these characteristics represents a real engineering problem which cannot be addressed using conventional computing resources. This investigation also provided a test case which is representative of the problem scale which needs to be achievable for EMC modelling to become practicable.