Educational value of the algebraic numerical methods in electromagnetism

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to highlight the educational value of algebraic numerical methods with respect to traditional numerical techniques based on differential formulation.Design/methodology/approach – Algebraic formulations of electromagnetic fields are gaining a new interest in the research community. One common characteristic of these methods is that they impose field equations, for instance charge or mass conservation, directly in algebraic form as a sum of partial contributes, without using differential operators like the divergence one. This feature leads directly to a system of linear equations without requiring any intermediate differential formulation as in finite element method. In addition, these systems of linear equations can be efficiently expressed as a product of matrices related to problem topology and material characteristics.Findings – Owing to these features, a MATLAB implementation of these theoretical frameworks is particularly efficient and simple and can be used by elec...