Time-integration methods for finite element discretisations of the second-order Maxwell equation

This article deals with time integration for the second-order Maxwell equations with possibly non-zero conductivity in the context of the discontinuous Galerkin finite elementmethod (DG-FEM) and theH(curl)-conforming FEM. For the spatial discretisation, hierarchic H(curl)-conforming basis functions are used up to polynomial order p = 3 over tetrahedralmeshes, meaning fourth-order convergence rate. A high-order polynomial basis oftenwarrants the use of high-order time-integration schemes, butmanywell-known high-order schemes may suffer from a severe time-step stability restriction owing to the conductivity term. We investigate several possible time-integration methods from the point of view of accuracy, stability and computational work. We also carry out a numerical Fourier analysis to study the dispersion and dissipation properties of the semi-discrete DG-FEM scheme as well as the fully-discrete schemes with several of the time-integration methods. The dispersion and dissipation properties of the spatial discretisation and those of the time-integration methods are investigated separately, providing additional insight into the two discretisation steps. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.