Finite-Element-Integral Equation Full-Wave Multisolver for Efficient Modeling of Resonant Wireless Power Transfer

With resonant wireless power transfer systems in operation, objects and/or humans having divers material properties come into the vicinity of the resonant coils. To model such systems efficiently, a novel full-wave multisolver is developed where the tangentially continuous vector finite element (FE) method is coupled with a method of moments (MoM) technique. The MoM technique is based on an electric field integral equation specifically designed to model the singular behavior of the thin coil wires, while the FE method is used to model the scattered field due to material inhomogeneities. A simplified sequential solver similar to the scattered field formulation is derived from the linear system of the multisolver in order to be applied as an efficient preconditioner, thereby speeding up the solution time significantly. The impedance change due to the material inhomogeneities can be calculated directly by applying the reaction concept. This ensures that the accuracy of the impedance change does not depend on the relative magnitude of the impedance change compared with the total impedance. The performance of the multisolver is illustrated by solving a test problem with a helical coil and a dielectric sphere with moderate conductivity, and comparing the multisolver results with the full FE solutions.