First simulation by CST Microwave Studio (in Time Domain mode)

Ben-Gurion University. Course Antennas and Radiation.

Berezin Maksim

CST MICROWAVE STUDIO

Main Features of CST MICROWAVE STUDIO
Fast and memory efficient FI-method. Good performance due to Perfect Boundary Approximation (PBA) for solvers using hexahedral grids. The transient and eigenmode solvers also support the Thin Sheet Technique (TST). Hexahedral grids are supported by all solvers. The structure can be viewed either as a 3D model or as a schematic. The latter allows for easy coupling of the EM simulation with circuit simulation. Transient solver for efficient calculation for loss-free and lossy structures. The solver does a broadband calculation of S-parameters from one single calculation run by applying DFTs to time signals. Frequency domain solver with adaptive sampling. The general purpose solver supports both, hexahedral and tetrahedral meshes. Besides the general purpose solver, the frequency domain solver also contains two solvers being specialized on strongly resonant structures (hexahedral meshes only). The first of these solvers does only calculate Sparameters whereas the second one also calculates fields which requires some additional calculation time. Calculation of 3D eigenmodes. Expert system based automatic mesh generation with 3D adaptive mesh refinement. AR-Filter analysis for resonant structures. Farfield (2D, 3D, gain, angular beam width and more) and radar cross section (RCS) calculation. Efficient build-in optimizer. (Powell and Quasi-Newton type, advanced multilevel interpolation schemes) Parameter Sweeps. Network Parameter Extraction. Spice Model Extraction.

SHAPE CREATION
Basic Shape Creation The easiest way to create a shape is to define a "primitive." The following table shows the toolbar items, their names and their menu commands. Objects Basic Shapes Brick Objects Basic Shapes Sphere Objects Basic Shapes Cylinder Objects Basic Shapes Elliptical Cylinder Objects Basic Shapes Cone Objects Basic Shapes Torus Objects Basic Shapes Bond Wire To create such a primitive, you will first need to activate the particular operation as shown in the table. This will lead you to the interactive shape generation mode where you may define the shape's parameters using the mouse (while in this mode, press F1 for more information). After the shape has been created, it will appear in the navigation tree under its Material folder. Blend and Chamfer Edges The simplest modifications of shapes are the blend and chamfer edge operations. To chamfer or blend edges, you will first have to pick these edges. Afterwards, you may activate the proper tool by choosing Objects Blend Edges ( ) or Objects Chamfer Edges ( ). Finally, a dialog box will appear where you may define the chamfer width or the blend radius.

SHAPE CREATION (continue)

Transformation may be applied to any shape by selecting a shape and then choosing Objects Transform Shape ( ). With this operation, you may translate, scale, rotate or mirror a shape. The existing shape may either be directly modified by the transformation or the original shape may be kept while new copies will be produced. Extrude and Rotate Picked Faces It often becomes useful to extrude or rotate already existing faces in the model. Therefore, you may pick a particular face and the activate the Extrude Face (Objects Extrude, ) operation or the Rotate Face (Objects Rotate, ) operation. The latter operation requires the definition of a rotation axis. The axis may be selected by either picking a straight edge from the model or entering a linear edge numerically (Objects Pick Edge from Coordinates, ). Loft Between Picked Faces A more advanced operation to create new shapes is lofting between profiles. This operations requires two faces to be picked between which the loft will be placed. Afterwards, you may activate the loft operation by choosing Objects Loft ( ). Finally, a dialog box will appear where you may adjust the tangency of the lofted surface to the adjacent faces. Shell or Thicken Sheet One of the most advanced operations for shape generation is the shelling operation. For shelling, you must first select a shape. If you select a solid shape, you may additionally pick faces of the shape that will be opened during the shelling operation. Finally, you may activate the shelling operation by choosing Objects Shell Solid or Thicken Sheet from the main menu. A dialog box will open, where you must specify whether the shape is to be shelled or thickened to the inside or to the outside. Material Each shape is assigned to a Material that will describe its material properties and its color. The materials are all shown in the navigation tree . Component The shapes are also associated to "components." Each shape must have a unique name within a certain component. Components are useful to quickly manipulate a larger part of the model.

Boolean Operations
Boolean operations are a very common way to produce complex shapes. With these operations, you may Add (Objects Boolean Add, ), Subtract (Objects Boolean Subtract, ), Intersect (Objects Boolean Intersect, ) Insert (Objects Boolean Insert, ) and Imprint (Objects Boolean Imprint) shapes into each other.

Different kinds of solver modules

Transient Solver This is a very flexible time domain simulation module that is capable of solving any kind of S-parameter or antenna problem. It will stimulate the structure at a previously defined port using a broadband signal. Broadband stimulation enables you to receive the S-parameters for your entire desired frequency range and, optionally, the electromagnetic field patterns at various desired frequencies from only one calculation run. Frequency Domain Solver Like the transient solver, the main task for the frequency domain solver module is to calculate S-parameters. Due to the fact that each frequency sample requires a new simulation run, the relationship between calculation time and frequency steps is linear unless special methods are applied to accelerate subsequent frequency domain solver runs. Therefore, the frequency domain solver usually is fastest when only a small number of frequency samples need to be calculated. Hence, a broadband S-parameter simulation with adaptively chosen frequency samples is performed to minimize the number of solver runs. If only S-parameters are required, an alternative method in the frequency domain is the "Resonant: Fast SParameter" solver. For this method, one simulation run is performed to obtain the S-parameters for the entire desired frequency range If field monitors are required, then the "Resonant: S-Parameter, fields" solver can be used. The S-parameters are again calculated in one simulation run for the entire desired frequency range In addition, electric and magnetic field monitors can be calculated in a postprocessing step very quickly at a given frequency marker Eigenmode Solver In cases of strongly resonant loss-free structures, where the resonant fields (= the modes) are to be calculated, the eigenmode solver is very efficient. This kind of analysis is often useful for determining the poles of a highly resonant filter structure. The eigenmode solver directly calculates the first N resonance frequencies and the corresponding field patterns. Integral Equation Solver The areas of application for the integral equation solver are S-Parameter and Farfield/ RCS calculations. The integral equation solver is of special interest for electrically large models. The discretization of the calculation area is reduced to the object boundaries and thus leads to a linear equation system with less unknowns than volume methods. The system matrix is dense. For calculation efficiency the equation system is solved by the Multi Level Fast Multipol Method (MLFMM). The integral equation solver is available for plane wave excitation and discrete face ports. Electric and open boundaries are supported.

Mesh Generation Overview Hexahedral Mesh Generation

In general, there are three ways to define a hexahedral mesh: manually, automatically and adaptively. PBA mesh: Besides the sufficient sampling of the fields, it is very important to obtain a good approximation of the structure within the mesh. This is performed by PBA, which maps the structure from the continuous world into the mesh of the discrete world. Staircase mesh: In addition to the PBA mesh, a classic staircase mesh is provided. Choose the staircase mesh for imported structures that are not solids or that cannot be healed. Structure Treatment by Automesh: To make sure that the structure is represented as well as possible, the automatic mesh generator tries to create the mesh such that critical structure elements are located on mesh lines or planes. This is accomplished by creating a number of fixpoints and densitypoints . In doing this, the mesh generator creates mesh lines that are very close to each other. For a very accurate discretization of the structure these mesh lines might be necessary, but small local mesh steps increase the simulation time. To avoid such problems, a ratiolimit may be defined. This forces the automatic mesh generator to produce a mesh where the absolute ratio between the highest and the smallest distance between mesh lines is below the ratiolimit value. The default value of 10 is very often a good compromise to start with Mesh and PEC Edges: At PEC edges, you theoretically obtain singularities in the electromagnetic fields. This means that the fields vary significantly near such edges. To obtain a good approximation of this behavior, the most straight-forward method is to increase the spatial sampling rate there A second, more sophisticated possibility is to use the corner correction method. The corner correction uses a singularity model for PEC edges. It is based on analytical models to obtain a better discretization of the electromagnetic fields. Adaptive Meshing For some structures the automatic mesh generator might not find an optimal mesh. In these cases, an adaptive meshing procedure might be more successful. This procedure simulates the structure a few times and improves the mesh from run to run. There are two different strategies for adaptive meshing. One is based on an expert system and the other on the different field energies within the calculation domain

Mesh Generation Overview Tetrahedral Mesh

Automatic mesh generation A tetrahedral mesh is generated by an automatic mesh generator. If a solver will be started with a tetrahedral method, the mesh generator will be started automatically, unless a valid tetrahedral mesh already exists. Alternatively, you may run the mesh generation to view the mesh before you start a specific solver by selecting Mesh Update or by pressing the toolbar button in the Mesh View. Previewing the mesh is not necessary, but is recommended to get obtain insight as to whether the defined problem is sufficiently resolved by the mesh, particularly if you do not use the adaptive mesh refinement. Mesh and structure approximation - surface and volume mesh Shape boundaries and sheets are discretized by the surface mesh consisting of triangles. A fine surface mesh will result in a good approximation of the structure geometry. Each triangle of the surface mesh is a side of one or two adjacent tetrahedrons. The set of tetrahedrons is called the volume mesh. Adaptive mesh refinement An optional adaptive mesh refinement ensures an accurate numerical solution in combination with a short simulation time. An adaptive solver run simulates the structure several times and locally improves the mesh from run to run. This results in optimal meshes, i.e. the computational power is concentrated to places where it is necessary. A good strategy is to start with a relatively coarse mesh and to use adaptive refinement to improve the results. Adaptive refinement can be switched on and off in the respective solver dialog.

Surface Mesh
Mesh and structure approximation - surface and mesh Shape boundaries and sheets are discretized by the surface mesh consisting of triangles. A fine surface mesh will result in a good approximation of the structure geometry

Circular Horn

Units
Solve Units

Background
Solve Background Material

This dialog box helps you to fill the undefined space within the boundaries. You may define its material properties. Additionally, you may add some space between the bounding box of your model and the boundaries that will be filled with the background material. Material properties frame Material type: The following material types are available:

PEC

Sets the background material to a Perfect Electric Conductor. Sets the background material to a normal material which is loss free and determined by its Epsilon and Mue.

Normal

Epsilon / Mue: In these fields you may enter permittivity Epsilon and permeability Mue if the normal material type is selected. Themal type: Set the thermal material type of the background material.

Geometry creation
Cylinder Creation Mode element solid1 Objects Basic Shapes Cylinder

You may interactively define a cylinder by double-clicking its base centerpoint, its radii and its height in the currently active coordinate system .

Geometry creation
Cone Creation Mode element solid2 Objects Basic Shapes Cone

You may interactively define a cone by double-clicking its base center point, its top and bottom radii and its height in the currently active coordinate system

Geometry creation
Cone Creation Mode element solid3 Objects Basic Shapes Cone

You may interactively define a cone by double-clicking its base center point, its top and bottom radii and its height in the currently active coordinate system

Transient Solver

Boolean Operations
Probably the most powerful operation to create complex shapes is the combination of simple shapes by boolean operations. These operations allow you to add two or more shapes together, to subtract one or more shapes from another, to insert shapes into others, and to intersect two or more shapes. Subtract solid3 from solid2:

Objects

Boolean

Subtract

Subtract the first shape from the second to obtain one single shape. The resulting shape will get the name and the material of the shape from which the other shape is subtracted.

Material setting

Materials: If a specific material is selected all its solids are visualized while the others are displayed transparently.

To select element

right click by mouse

Change material

The PEC is material for the solid1 and for the solid2.

Excitation Source
To select the surface of the horn for waveguide port on the solid1 You pick a face that is aligned to one of the coordinate axes before entering this dialog box, it will define the dimensions of the new port region. Objects Pick Pick Face

Waveguide ports are used to feed the calculation domain with power and to absorb the returning power. For each waveguide port, Sparameters (and time signals for time domain simulations) will be recorded during a solver run. In practice, the port can be substituted by a longitudinal homogenous waveguide connected to the structure

Solve

Waveguide Ports

Excitation Source

Boundary Conditions - Boundaries

Solve

Boundary Conditions

Boundaries

Due to the fact that a computer is only capable of calculating problems that have finite expansion, you need to specify the boundary conditions. This can be done within this dialog box. If you entered the boundaries property sheet, the modeled structure is displayed with a surrounding bounding box colored with regard to the boundary condition at each boundary. The picture on the right shows an example of such a bounding box. The assignment of the colors to the boundary conditions is listed together with the description of the different boundary conditions below.

You may double-click on the boundary conditions icon in the main plot window to select one boundary. By pressing the right mouse button in the main plot window, you can set the type of the boundary condition for the selected boundary using the popup menu.

Boundary conditions : Xmin / Xmax / Ymin / Ymax / Zmin / Zmax

Boundary Conditions - Boundaries

Electric: Operates like a perfect electric conductor: all tangential electric fields and normal magnetic
fluxes are set to zero.

Magnetic: Operates like a perfect magnetic conductor: all tangential magnetic fields and normal
electric fluxes are set to zero.

Open (PML): Operates like free space: waves can pass this boundary with minimal reflections. Open (add space): Same as Open (PML), but adds some extra space for farfield calculation. This
option is recommended for antenna problems.

Periodic: Connects two opposite boundaries with a definable phase shift such that the calculation
domain is simulated to be periodically expanded in the corresponding direction.

Boundary
Solve Boundary Conditions Boundaries

Frequency Range
Solve Frequency

Field Monitors
Solve Field Monitors

Results Analyze 1D Results

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results 100GHz

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results 100GHz

Results
3D Far Field

Microstrip Antenna Rectandular Patch

Units
Solve Units

Background
Solve Background Material

Geometry creation
Brick Creation Mode element solid1 Objects . Basic Shapes Brick

Geometry creation
To define the additional coordinate system (U,V,W): WCS Local Coordinate System

To push

(Move Local Coordinate System)

Geometry creation
Brick Creation Mode element solid2.(second element)

Objects .

Basic Shapes

Brick

Boolean Operation

To select these two bricks- solid1 and solid2:

Objects

Boolean

Add

Geometry creation
To define the other additional coordinate system (U,V,W): dU=-10 Brick Creation Mode element solid2.(substrate) Objects . Basic Shapes Brick dW= -9 (from first local CS)

Material setting

Materials: If a specific material is selected all its solids are visualized while the others are displayed transparently.

To select element

right click by mouse

Change material

The PEC is material for the solid1 and the substrate for the solid2. This dielectric doesnt locate into internal material library of the CST and has Epsilon 2.2 and Mue 1.0.

Excitation Source
To create the brick3 with dimensions: Xmin=-1.01 Xmax=8; Ymin=-8 Ymax=-4; Zmin=-0.794 Zmax=3

This element must be create into WCS

Objects Pick Pick Face

To select the surface of the brick3 for waveguide port. You pick a face that is aligned to one of the coordinate axes before entering this dialog box.

Waveguide ports are used to feed the calculation domain with power and to absorb the returning power. For each waveguide port, Sparameters (and time signals for time domain simulations) will be recorded during a solver run. In practice, the port can be substituted by a longitudinal homogenous waveguide connected to the structure

Excitation Source Solve Waveguide Ports

Boundary
Solve Boundary Conditions Boundaries

Frequency Range
Solve Frequency

Field Monitors
Solve Field Monitors

Transient Solver

Results Analyze 1D Results

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results

Results Analyze 2D/3D Results

Results
3D Far Field

Results
3D Far Field