The Influence of Gauge Conditions on Process and Result of Solving 3-D Problems of Computational Electromagnetism by the Finite Element Method

This article discusses the properties of the practical application results of the Coulomb and the “tree-cotree” gauge conditions for problems based on massive finite element 3-D-meshes (up to 12 million tetrahedrons) and with the
${A}$
–
${V}$
formulation of the magnetic potential. The influence of the sort of gauging of the magnetic vector potential on the accuracy of the calculated solution of systems of linear algebraic equations (SLAEs) is shown by the example of magnetostatics and quasi-static (frequency domain) benchmark problems. The study was carried out for the cases of solving problems by iterative methods of the Krylov subspace and by direct methods. Iterative methods have shown the complexity of achieving the required solution accuracy with an increase in the number of finite elements and deterioration of the properties of the SLAE. The analysis of the dependence of the iterative process convergence and the required solution accuracy on the number of elements in the mesh and the type of gauging applied is accomplished. For direct methods for solving SLAEs, an
a posteriori
estimate of the dependence of the value of the relative forward error on the presence and type of the gauge condition is performed. The possibility and efficiency of using block low-rank (BLR) factorization for solving SLAEs in the presence and absence of gauge conditions are considered. The conditions for using the gauging of the magnetic vector potential are shown, which are suitable for simplifying the process of preparing and solving numerical problems and increasing the accuracy of the calculated values of the magnetic vector potential in the frequency domain.