This video is taken from the FDE Learning Track on Ansys Innovation Courses.
Transcript
The Material Explorer window can be opened from the Check menu in the simulation toolbar.
This tool allows you to plot material data and the broadband material fits used in the
simulation.
This is important to ensure that the simulated materials closely match the material data
for sampled materials so that the simulation results will be accurate.
Before performing a frequency sweep, you should check material fits in the Material Explorer.
By default, the list of materials under the Material drop down menu shows only the materials
that are being used in the simulation, and you need to click on “Show all materials…”
to see the full list of materials from the material database.
If there are no materials used, then the full list of materials in the Material Database
is shown.
The Axis setting allows you to choose which axis to plot the material data for diagonally
anisotropic materials.
Under the View settings box for 3D material models you can choose to plot the real and
imaginary parts of the refractive index or permittivity, and you can choose to plot the
data over frequency or wavelength.
For 2D material models you can choose to plot the surface conductivity or resistivity over
frequency or wavelength.
By default the data will be plotted over the simulation bandwidth but you can also choose
to view an extended range or a specified range.
By default, linear interpolation is used between data points.
This option is recommended if you are only analyzing modes at a single frequency, since
only one material data point is necessary to perform mode calculations.
If you are performing frequency analysis, where the material dispersion must be included,
broadband material fits are generated using the Multi-coefficient Material Model, or MCM
for short.
Material fitting parameters include the fit Tolerance, and max coefficients in the Material
settings box, as well as additional settings displayed when you click on the “Show advanced”
button.
Material fitting will be discussed in more detail in the next unit.
Fitting can be enabled in the Material explorer under the simulation bandwidth settings, or
in the FDE solver region settings.
Solver region settings will be covered later in the course.
Clicking the “Fit and plot” button will calculate the material fit and generate the
plots in the chart area of the Material Explorer window.
The plots will show the simulation model, and material data or theoretical model depending
on whether the material is a sampled data material or not.
The fit analysis section gives some details about the material fit including standard
and weighted RMS error and the number of coefficients used in the fit.
Always remember to enable multi-coefficient fitting for frequency sweeps to avoid discontinuous
dispersion due to linear interpolation.
The material data and material fit data can be obtained from the script.
For an example see the related link below.