SolvEMCA2

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation Framework Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101066571. 

MSCA-PF

The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships aim to enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers who hold a PhD by offering opportunities for advanced training and fostering international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral mobility. These fellowships are open to outstanding researchers of any nationality, providing them with a platform to design and carry out original, tailored research projects. By promoting excellence in both research and training, the program equips researchers with new skills and expertise to tackle present and future global challenges. Moreover, postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to engage with society, ensuring that their research outcomes are accessible and impactful for a broader audience.

For more information, please visit MSCA’s website.

Objective of SolvEMCA2

Aircraft electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) certification methods primarily rely on experimental testing to meet standards such as DO-160. This approach is often costly, requiring extensive measurements, and can result in significant rework expenses when EMC vulnerabilities are discovered late in the development process. To mitigate these challenges, numerical solvers are increasingly used to complement experimental techniques. These solvers allow engineers to tackle complex problems and gain deeper insights into how key parameters, like shielding effectiveness, can impact the overall design. In this work, we address two key challenges identified by the aerospace industry. First, we will develop advanced macroscopic models for novel nano- and micro-engineered smart materials used alongside Carbon Fiber Composites (CFCs) for integration into full-wave numerical solvers, with a focus on the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method. Starting from their microscopic structure, we will derive realistic macroscopic electric and magnetic dispersive constitutive parameters that are iso/anisotropic and potentially nonlinear. Second, we will design specific subcell models for complex geometric features—such as junctions, slots, gaps, and curvatures—to integrate them efficiently into the FDTD method. This approach will avoid computationally prohibitive brute-force simulations of geometrically intricate parts of the aircraft. The enhanced FDTD method will thus be capable of simulating realistic electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems across an entire aircraft, incorporating both CFCs and novel smart materials, while accounting for all geometrical fine details relevant to electromagnetic performance—achieving this with manageable computational resources in terms of memory and CPU time.