The Applied Electromagnetics Group (AEG) box test suite, aegboxts, is a suite of validation test cases for computational electromagnetics (CEM) simulation tools. The test-cases were designed with to be representative of typical Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) applications and are therefore of particular utility for validating tools for use in this application area. The test suite was primarily developed in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York as part of a research theme on Validation of Computational Electromagnetic Solvers and has been used and developed in a number of large research programmes (see Credits below).

The test-suite includes the following components that can be assemble into a range of overall test-cases:

• A metal enclosure with an interchangeable "front plate" (EN).

• The options for the front plate are:

  • Absent, i.e. open-face (OF).

  • Completely closed by a metal plate (CF).

  • A plate with large circular and square apertures (GP).

  • A plate with an array of small circular holes (PP).

  • A plate with a representation of an overlapped panel joint (PJ).

• Wires can be connected between two test-port on top face of the box:

  • Short monopole probes (PAPB).

  • A straight wire (SW).

  • A curve wire (CW).

  • An eight wire loom (LM).

• The internal cavity can be load with lossy dielectric material:

  • Absent, i.e. no loading (A0).

  • A cube of lossy dielectric on the back left corner of he box floor (A1).

  • A cube of lossy dielectric in the centre of he box floor (A2).

Models for the materials are provided in the specification.

The test-suite specification is provided in a written Specification Document.

A basic CAD file for the main components of the test suite in Gmsh's ".geo" format is included in the source distribution. This includes the EN, A0, A1, A2, SW, PA, PB, CW and GP elements.

Many parts of the test suite have been implemented physically and measured in the AEG laboratories at the University of York. Below is an example configuration of the physical test objects including the enclosure, curve wire and cube of lossy dielectric.

The physical test objects may be available to borrow for research purposes. Please contact Dr John Dawson, [email protected] for details.

The data-sets for a number of test-cases that have been measured are available in the test suite distribution.

We welcome any contributions to the development of the test suite, including:

• CAD files.

• Meshes.

• Improving the user documentation.

• Additional elements and test cases.

• Simulation results for particular configurations.

Please contact Dr Ian Flintoft, [email protected], if you are interested in helping with these or any other aspect of development.

The test suite specification and associated files are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence described in the file Licence.md.

Dr Ian Flintoft, [email protected]

Dr John Dawson, [email protected]

The components of the test-suite have been developed over a number of years and research programmes by Dr Ian Flintoft, Dr John Dawson, Dr Linda Dawson and Prof Andy Marvin in the AEG. We grateful acknowledge the following sources of support:

1. The FLAVIIR project which was a five year research programme looking at technologies for future unmanned air vehicles (UAV) funded jointly by BAES and EPSRC.

2. The EU FP7 High Intensity Radiated Field Synthetic Environment HIRF-SE research programme that developed a simulation framework to aid aeronautical certification against electromagnetic threats.

In addition we acknowledge the following people for there specific contributions and guidance on various aspects of the test-suite:

1. John-Phillipe Parmantier from ONERA.

2. John Kazik from IDS-UK.

(Flintoft2016) I D Flintoft, J F Dawson, L Dawson, A C Marvin, J Alvarez and S G. Garcia, “A modular test suite for the validation and verification of electromagnetic solvers in electromagnetic compatibility applications”, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, in press, 2016.

(Flintoft2013) I. D. Flintoft, J. F. Dawson, L. Dawson, and A. C. Marvin, “A modular test-case for validation of electromagnetic solvers in electromagnetic compatibility applications”, Computational Electromagnetics for EMC 2013 (CEMEMC'13), Granada, Spain, 19-21 March, 2013.

(Rigden2013) G. J. Rigden, “EMA3D Numerical Results for the CEMEMC’12 Case 2: Validation BoxEMA3D Numerical Results for the CEMEMC’12 Case 3: LLSC Test for Shielded Harness”, Computational Electromagnetics for EMC 2013 (CEMEMC'13), Granada, Spain, 19-21 March, 2013.

(Tallini2011) D. Tallini, J. F. Dawson, I. D. Flintoft, M. Kunze and I. Munteanu, “Virtual HIRF Tests in CST STUDIO SUITE - A Reverberant Environment Application”, International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA2011), Special Session on Numerical Methods for Challenging Multi-Scale Problems Torino, Italy, 12-16 September, 2011. pp. 849-852.

(Christopoulos2010) C. Christopoulos, J. F. Dawson, L. Dawson, I. D. Flintoft, O. Hassan, A. C. Marvin, K. Morgan, P. Sewell, C. J. Smartt and Z. Q. Xie, “Characterisation and Modelling of Electromagnetic Interactions in Aircraft”, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering: Special Issue on FLAVIIR, Vol. 224, No. 4, 2010, pp. 449-458.

(Dawson2008) J. F. Dawson, C. J. Smartt, I. D. Flintoft and C. Christopoulos, “Validating a Numerical Electromagnetic Solver in a Reverberant Environment”, IET Seventh International Conference on Computation in Electromagnetics, 7-10 April 2008, Quality Hotel, Brighton, UK, pp. 42-43.

• The Validation of Computational Electromagnetic Solvers project.

• IEEE Std 1597.1-2008 on validation of CEM simulations.

• Ed Miiler's article in on verification and validation in the IEEE EMC Society Newsletter (Miller2006).

• The AEG structured mesh generator AEG Mesher.

• The AEG FDTD solver Vulture.

• The GGIEMR TLM solver GGI_TLM.

(IEEE Std 1597.1-2008) IEEE Std 1597.1-2008, "IEEE Standard for Validation of Computational Electromagnetics Computer Modeling and Simulations", 2008.

(Miller2006) E. Miller, "Verification and Validation of Computational Electromagnetics Software", IEEE EMC Society Newsletter, pp. 66-84, Fall 2006.

(Duffy2006a) A. P. Duffy, A. J. M. Martin, A. Orlandi, G. Antonini, T. M. Benson and M. S. Woolfson, "Feature selective validation (FSV) for validation of computational electromagnetics (CEM): Part I - The FSV method", IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 449-459, Aug. 2006.

(Orlandi2006) A. Orlandi, A. P. Duffy, B. Archambeault, G. Antonini, D. E. Coleby and S. Connor, "Feature selective validation (FSV) for validation of computational electromagnetics (CEM): Part II - Assessment of FSV performance", IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 460-467, Aug. 2006.