MHARNESS

The program MHARNESS® is a multi-conductor, multi-shield, multi-branched cable harness transmission line solver based upon the finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique. The implementation of a time domain technique provides broad-band results often required to accurately characterize complex cable harness system behavior. MHARNESS can be used to analyze complex systems as well as simple configurations such a wire over a ground plane. Where appropriate, MHARNESS can be used as a transmission line approximation of more complex three-dimensional systems.

The MHARNESS program is fully integrated with the software program EMA3D®. EMA3D is a commercially available software product available from Electro Magnetic Applications, Inc. EMA3D is a three-dimensional full-wave electromagnetic solver that is also based upon the finite difference time domain technique. Calling MHARNESS from EMA3D enables the computation of complex cable responses, in a fully self-consistent, strongly coupled fashion, with the three-dimensional solution of a full wave solver. The implementation of MHARNESS within EMA3D is discussed in the EMA3D user guide.

Each cable harness branch can contain layers of shields, wires, and conductors - all immersed in a variety of respective media, though each MHARNESS segment can only exist within a single isotropic material (except at endpoints). Within MHARNESS are algorithms to analyze electromagnetic coupling through various cable shields to the conductors and wires within. Cable connectors, often possessing different impedance characteristics then the cable itself, are easily defined and employed. A variety of methods are available to terminate each conductor, wire, and shield within a cable harness including circuit terminations. Many types of sources are available to drive the cable system including voltage sources, electric fields, current sources, and plane wave sources.

The algorithms within the MHARNESS solver are designed to read an input text file. This file contains all the necessary descriptions and definitions necessary to completely define the problem. This manual is designed to present the features and capabilities of MHARNESS, explain the terminology used, and to provide complete easy-to-understand instructions on how to properly construct the MHARNESS input file manually. An MHARNESS GUI is also available to construct this file.

A single graphical depiction of the capabilities and features in MHARNESS is provided below.

Figure 1: Graphical depiction of the capabilities and features in MHARNESS.

The MHARNESS user guide is broken up into the following sections: