Wire grid modeling of surfaces

When a surface is numerically modeled with a wire grid, results are sensitive to the wire diameter. It is shown that the best accuracy is obtained when the wire satisfies the "same surface area" rule of thumb, for the canonical problem of scattering (or radiation) from an infinite circular cylinder. It is important to note that wires that are too thick are just as bad as wires that are too thin. It is also shown that the boundary value match between wires is not a reliable check on the validity of farfield results. Finally, data are given on the effect of wire spacing. Results are obtained from exact solutions of both the true problem and the wire grid model, thus isolating the effects of wire grid modeling per se.