A Three-Dimensional Finite-Difference Solution of the External Response of an Aircraft to a Complex Transient EM Environment: Part I-The Method and Its Implementation

Experimental charge and current measurements have recently been performed on an aircraft when it was exposed to the transient electromagnetic fi'eld of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator. These new data allow a test of the predictive capabilities of the three-dimensional finite-difference method for realistic aircraft simulator test problems. In the paper, the workings of the threedimensional finite-difference method and its required inputs and sensitivity to variations in the inputs are discussed in sufficient detail to enable others to employ the method. A companion paper compares the experimental measurements to predictions for a large variety of measurement locations. Agreement is shown to be good for all major response measurements and satisfactory for a number of other measurements.