FREE electromagnetic simulators, rather than commercial ones

[eng.amq]

Hi guys,

I want you to help mentioning whatever FREE electromagnetic simulation software you know. We want to step up to the free world even in our field, and it's really unfair that humans are far from reaching these technologies just because others want to make money and they don't have these huge piles of money to pay for licenses that will last for a year or so. Knowledge should be FREE for everyone in this world..

I'm an open-source software fan and would like to share my interest here to get some beneficial replies for me and the others as well.. so please guys help me in listing what you know about FREE magnetic, electrostatic, electromagnetic, heat flow, current flow, whether full wave 3D simulators or not.. even if codes executed in MATLAB or C/C++ or anything else. Help the ones who have brains but no money to do research and innovate this "money and business oriented" world. Let's encourage the volunteers who are working to make these things free for us, their efforts are really cherished..

The first and best one I know is emGine, you can download it from https://www.petr-lorenz.com/emgine/
It can be used to simulate 3D structures using FDTD method. The software is still very young and needs many stuff, yet, it works just nicely. Here are some screen shots:

The other one I know is MMTL, a Multilayer Multiconductor Transmission Line 2-D and 2.5-D electromagnetic modeling tool suite which you can get from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mmtl/
Here's the only screen shot I found: https://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=30396


Another one is FEMM for Magnetics, Electrostatics, Heat Flow, and Current Flow. You can get it from: https://www.femm.info/wiki/HomePage
Here are some shots:

Anybody knows anymore? especially in the field of Antenna design, planar structures design..

 

[e_m_c]

https://emcos.com/index.php?id=166

Antenna Virtual Lab - Free Student Version.

Or you are looking only for Open Source? There list will e very short I guess...

 

[eng.amq]

Nice contribution, we can count on it. They've just released their version 1.0, but it is still not free for I've already registered there as a student and they gave me a license till the end of year 2010, which is about 6 months period. Meaning that they're still not free but good enough for many cases.. They're the most flexible in negotiation :!:

There's another one by Comsol https://www.comsol.com/ , they have a full multi-physics package including an RF module which concerns us. They also give a free student license for a period of time depending on your request. They're flexible enough that we've purchased a 3 months license from them recently.

Looking for absolutely free ones, no matter open source or not as long as they're free

 

[volker_muehlhaus]

Re: FREE electromagnetic simulators, rather than commercial

I also like the TNT MMTL cross section solver (2D) that you mentioned, and use it for transmission line stuff to cross check results.
http://mmtl.sourceforge.net

The other one I want to add here is the Sonnet Lite planar 3D simulator.
It is limited in complexity, but can easily do the microstrip examples shown above and is more efficient & accurate than FDTD for planar models.
http://www.sonnetsoftware.com/products/lite/

 

[eng.amq]

Thank you volker,

I also tried Sonnet which seemed to be very good, but the problem is that the limitation is so severe that you can't simulate most of the cases you want.
The memory limitation is only 16 MB which means that you're only able to simulate extremely simple structures successfully, otherwise no way

It disappointed me indeed, I hope they'll be more flexible with their free version in the future.

 

[volker_muehlhaus]

Re: FREE electromagnetic simulators, rather than commercial

I also tried Sonnet which seemed to be very good, but the problem is that the limitation is so severe that you can't simulate most of the cases you want.
The memory limitation is only 16 MB which means that you're only able to simulate extremely simple structures successfully, otherwise no way

You might find this document useful, to use efficient meshing for minimum memory requirement:
**broken link removed**

With proper meshing, you can do amazing things within the 16MB limit, and the Lite version has the full accuracy of a professional EM tool (calibrated ports etc.)

 

[e_m_c]

Re: FREE electromagnetic simulators, rather than commercial

eng.amq, as for Antenna Lab I believe you will get another license for free for next year as well. Probably you would need just to re-send request by the end of year.

 

[caocheng8230]

you can try NEC either.
**broken link removed**

 

[tyenergy]

It is a good idea to share free simulators.
I have some mode-matching code by myself, which can solve rectangular waveguide problem, junctions and cascading. Maybe later I can share it. But now the code is not very user-friendly, so i have to revise the interface first.

 

[kekosat300]

You can also try the student version of **broken link removed**.

 

[flashking]

also there is EM3DS free version

can be downloaded from here

**broken link removed**

by the way AWR has a program named AXIEM whic I don't know wether it is free or not ?

AWR | AXIEM | 3D Planar Electromagnetic Simulation Software

 

[sameervedula]

In addition to the above mentioned excellent stuff a huge variety of toolboxes are available in MATLAB for finite Element Method, Finite Difference Time Domain Method in MATLAB central file exchange server for free. NEC & SuperNEC are also free tools for antenna design and analysis.
Also all the famous Software people provide full evaluation version for free but for limited period. This may not be appropriate one to be discussed in this thread but given here for information.

 

[Hash]

Hello,

I've recently discovered Qucs (Qucs project: Quite Universal Circuit Simulator) which is a nice integrated circuit simulator.
**broken links removed**

It would be great if this post could be "sticky".

 

[keith1200rs]

It would be great if this post could be "sticky".

Done.

Keith

 

[kezambo]

hi,

alternative for MATLAB is Home - Scilab WebSiteHome - Scilab WebSite

 

[kodar]

All full list of free computational electromagnetic code: Clemson Vehicular Electronics Laboratory: Free EM Modeling Codes

This web site is cool. They give good explanation about all of the EM modeling techniques (FEM, FDTD, MoM, ...).

Get also in their Searchable Database of Electromagnetic Modeling Codes for more free programs which are not listed in the previous page.

**broken link removed**

 

[kodar]

VEMSA3D

SourceForge.net: VEMSA3D - Project Web Hosting - Open Source Software

 

[ATuor]

Also look here:

Fast Field Solvers

 

[fredd]

Here is another freeware: **broken link removed**
An interactive 2D½ CAD tool that can analyze, model, and optimize monolithic passive devices such as inductors.

Enjoy! ^_^

 

[coutuser]

Are they all linux compatible?