Introduction to the Finite Element Method in Electromagnetics

This series lecture is an introduction to the finite element method with applications in electromagnetics. The finite element method is a numerical method that is used to solve boundary-value problems characterized by a partial differential equation and a set of boundary conditions. The geometrical domain of a boundary-value problem is discretized using sub-domain elements, called the finite elements, and the differential equation is applied to a single element after it is brought to a “weak” integro-differential form. A set of shape functions is used to represent the primary unknown variable in the element domain. A set of linear equations is obtained for each element in the discretized domain. A global matrix system is formed after the assembly of all elements.