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Object-Oriented FD-TD Method in Java
Stephen Kirkup, May 2014

The purpose of this note is to summarise the current position in developing an Object-
Oriented FD-TD Method in Java and to give links to all relevant information and the Java
software package as it currently stands. This document also sets out the authors
interests to initiate future research and development areas.
The initial reason for developing an implementation of the finite difference time
domain (FD-TD) method was to apply it to the transient modelling of capacitors,
particularly in the case of discharges between capacitor plates
12
. At the time that the
project was initiated Java
3
was a fairly new language and I was interested in gaining
experience in this language, along with collaborators on this project. In parallel with
this, work was carried out using the transmission line modelling method
4
(also in Java),
also for the transient case, and the boundary element method
5
(in Fortran
6
) for the
steady state case.
Initially a working program was developed
1
and then the object-oriented design of the
code was further developed. The current Java codes can be downloaded
7
. The input to
the code is placed in a *.dat file, in which the cuboidal material domain is represented as
a set of cubes and the conditions are applied. The software consists of a pre-processor
FDTDpre.java, which links to the other files and outputs the results of the simulation to
files. That is apart from FDTDpost.java, the post-processor, which visualises the stored
results, The article
2
is also useful as a manual for the software.
The author is interested in the FD-TD method and hence with its most typical
application area in electromagnetics. The LinkedIn group FD-TD method in
Electromagnetic Simulation was created in was initiated to support the development of
the method. The author is interested in developing the object-oriented nature of the
code, applying the FD-TD method to electromagnetic simulation of components of
physical scenarios and in applying the FD-TD method in acoustics.


1
Capacitor Modelling by FDTD
2
Electromagnetic Simulation by the FDTD method in Java
3
Java
4
On coupling electromagnetic fields and lumped circuits with TLM
5
DC capacitor simulation by the boundary element method
6
Fortran 77 Tutorials
7
Java codes implementing the FD-TD method in Java