FREQUENCY-INDEPENDENT INFINITE ELEMENTS FOR ANALYSING SEMI-INFINITE PROBLEMS

Two drawbacks exist with the infinite elements used for simulating the unbounded domains of semi-infinite problems. The first is the lack of an adequate measure for calculating the decay parameter. The second is the frequency-dependent characteristic of the finite/infinite element mesh used for deriving the impedance matrices. Based on the properties of wave propagation, a scheme is proposed in this paper for evaluating the decay parameter. In addition, it is shown that by the method of dynamic condensation, the far-field impedance matrices for waves of lower frequencies can be obtained repetitively from the one for waves of the highest frequency, using exactly the same finite/infinite element mesh. Such an approach ensures that accuracy of the same degree can be maintained for waves of all frequencies within the range of consideration. Effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in the numerical examples through comparison with previous results.