International Journal of Antennas and Propagation
Volume 2015 (2015), Article ID 276863, 7 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/276863

Research Article

Electromagnetic Pulse of a Vertical Electric Dipole in the Presence of Three-Layered Region

D. Cheng, T. T. Gu, P. Cao, T. He, and K. Li

College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

Received 1 June 2015; Revised 8 August 2015; Accepted 24 August 2015

Academic Editor: Ikmo Park

Copyright © 2015 D. Cheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

Approximate formulas are obtained for the electromagnetic pulses due to a delta-function current in a vertical electric dipole on the planar surface of a perfect conductor coated by a dielectric layer. The new approximated formulas for the electromagnetic field in time domain are retreated analytically and some new results are obtained. Computations and discussions are carried out for the time-domain field components radiated by a vertical electric dipole in the presence of three-layered region. It is shown that the trapped-surface-wave terms should be included in the total transient field when both the vertical electric dipole and the observation point are on or near the planar surface of the dielectric-coated earth.

1. Introduction

It is known that the properties of the electromagnetic wave radiated by a vertical or horizontal electric dipole in the presence of layered region have been studied analytically by many researchers over a century. This problem has led to many published papers and was well summarized in two famous monographs [1, 2]. In a series of works by King et al., the approximated solutions are obtained for the electromagnetic field of a dipole in the presence of three-layered region [3–5]. In the comments by Wait, it is claimed that the trapped-surface-wave term should be included in the solutions by King et al. [6]. Lately, the old problem was revisited by many researchers, particularly including Mahmoud et al. [7], Collin [8, 9], and Zhang and Pan [10]. Subsequent work was also carried out and some new developments were made. The details are summarized in recent book by Li [11]. It is concluded that the trapped surface wave can be excited efficiently by a dipole source in the presence of three-layered region [11–13].

Evidently, it is also necessary to study the properties and applications for the transient electromagnetic field of a dipole in a layered region. In 1950s, the first analytical solution for the transient electromagnetic pulse of a delta current in a vertical electric dipole on the interface between two different media was carried out by van der Pol [14]. The subsequent contributions on the transient field radiated by a dipole source on or near the boundary of two different media were made by other pioneers [15–23]. Some important work on the exact formulas for the transient field radiated by a vertical electric dipole with delta-function excitation on the boundary of two dielectrics was carried out by Wu and King [20]. As the extensions of above works, the transient electromagnetic field of horizontal electric dipole on or near the boundary between two different media was reexamined analytically [24–26].

In Chapter 15 of the monograph [2], the propagation of the electromagnetic pulses radiated by a horizontal electric dipole with delta-function excitation in the presence of three-layered region was processed analytically. It is found that the trapped-surface-wave term was not included in the analytical formulas for the transient field components. The new developments on the analytical frequency-domain results for the trapped surface wave in [8–13] aroused interest in the study on the transient electromagnetic field due to a dipole in the presence of three-layered region.

In the present study, we are attempting to derive the analytical formulas for the transient pulses radiated by a vertical electric dipole with a delta-function excitation on the surface of a perfect conductor coated with a dielectric layer.

2. Transient Field of Vertical Electric Dipole with Delta-Function Excitation

2.1. The Simplified Representations for the Field Components in Frequency Domain

The relevant geometry and Cartesian coordinate system are illustrated in Figure 1, where a unit vertical electric dipole in direction is located at and surrounded by air. Region 0 is the upper half-space filled with air, the intermediate layer in Region 1 is characterized by the permeability and relative permittivity , and Region 2 is the rest space representing a conducting dielectric base. It is assumed that both Region 0 and Region 1 are nonmagnetic and Region 2 is a perfect conductor. So that the wave numbers of the three regions are

Figure 1: Vertical dipole at height in air near the surface of a planar perfect conductor coated with a dielectric layer.

The approximated formulas were derived for the electromagnetic field in the frequency domain excited by a vertical electric dipole in the presence of three-layered region [10, 11]. With the time dependence of , these three components can be written in the following forms:

In above formulas, and . and are expressed as follows:

where , , and the pole is determined by the roots of the following pole equation:

The Fresnel function is defined by

where

It is assumed that the intermediate layer is satisfied by the condition that . Nominally, the dielectric layer is usually electrically very thin. Thus, we have

With (7), by introducing the change of the variable , it follows that

With above approximations, these three components in frequency domain can be rewritten in the following simplified forms:

In above three formulas, it is assumed that both the dipole and the observation point are on or near the surface of the coating conductor. It is noted that can be written in the following form:

where .

2.2. Approximated Formulas for Transient Field

With the frequency-domain formulas for the field components and replacing by , the analytical formulas for the time-dependent components can be obtained by using Fourier transforms. Thus, the three time-dependent field components can be written in the following forms:

where

It is seen that the integrals , , , and have been evaluated in [2, 11]. We write

Next, it is necessary to evaluate the integrals , , and . With complex derivations, the evaluations of the integrals , , and can be obtained. We write

In above formulas, the Heaviside unit step function is defined by

The Fresnel cosine integral and sine integral are written in the following forms:

where . The variable is

With the substitutions of (15) and (16) into (13) and considering , the approximate formulas of the time-dependent field components can be derived readily. We write

From above derivations and analysis, it is seen that both the trapped-surface-wave terms and the lateral-wave terms in (20)–(22) converge with and , respectively. When both the vertical electric dipole and the observation point are on or near the planar surface of the dielectric-coated earth, the trapped-surface-wave terms are included in the total transient field components.

3. Computations and Discussions

For the asphalt- and cement-coated earth or ice-coated seawater at low frequencies, the earth or sea can be usually regarded as a perfect conductor, so that the region of interest is taken as a perfect conductor, a dielectric layer, and air above. With  km, the magnitudes of the component due to a vertical electric dipole on the surface of a dielectric-coated conductor are computed at , and 3.65 and showed in Figure 2, respectively. It is noted that the properties of other two components and are similar to those of the component .

Figure 2: Magnitudes of due to a vertical electric dipole with delta-function excitation with  km.

With  km and , and 3.65, the magnitudes of the trapped-surface-wave terms in (20) are computed at and and shown in Figure 3, respectively. It is known that the trapped-surface-wave terms are contributed by the poles , which are determined by both the dielectric parameters and the thickness of the dielectric layer [11]. Once the poles are determined, the trapped-surface-wave terms can be computed readily. In Figure 4, the trapped-surface-wave terms are computed at  km and  km, respectively.

Figure 3: Magnitudes of the trapped-surface-wave term due to a vertical electric dipole with delta-function excitation with  km and , and 3.65.

Figure 4: Comparisons between the trapped-surface-wave pulses at  km and those at  km.

4. Conclusions

In this paper, the transient electromagnetic field components due to a delta-function current in vertical electric dipole on the surface of a dielectric-coated conductor are studied analytically. Particularly, the completed analytical formulas for the trapped-surface-wave terms are derived. It is concluded that both the trapped-surface-wave pulses and the lateral-wave pulses decrease with the amplitude factors and , respectively. Furthermore, the present study can be extended to the case in which electromagnetic pulse is excited by a horizontal electric dipole in the presence of three-layered region.

Disclosure

T. He is a coauthor who improved the English writing of this paper.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgments

This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no. 61271086 and no. 60971057. The authors are grateful to all referees for their constructive comments and suggestions in improving the quality of this paper. The authors thank all associate editors very much for their help and encouragements. The authors also wish to thank all reviewers for their insightful suggestions and comments.

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