Test-Driven Development of a Substructuring Technique for the Analysis of Electromagnetic Finite Periodic Structures

Abstract

In this paper, we follow the Test-Driven Development (TDD) paradigm in the development of an in-house code to allow for the finite element analysis of finite periodic type electromagnetic structures (e.g., antenna arrays, metamaterials, and several relevant electromagnetic problems). We use unit and integration tests, system tests (using the Method of Manufactured Solutions—MMS), and application tests (smoke, performance, and validation tests) to increase the reliability of the code and to shorten its development cycle. We apply substructuring techniques based on the definition of a unit cell to benefit from the repeatability of the problem and speed up the computations. Specifically, we propose an approach to model the problem using only one type of Schur complement which has advantages concerning other substructuring techniques.

Keywords

• test-driven development
• verification and validation
• finite element method
• substructuring techniques
• finite periodic structures
• computational electromagnetics