Application of the Method of Moments to the Capacitance Computation of a Parallel-Plate Rectangular Capacitor

Abstract

The method of moments is applied to numerically compute the electrostatic capacitance of a parallel-plate rectangular capacitor of finite area. Each plate is discretized into 900 patches per unit area to ensure a high accuracy of computation. To further enhance computational results, the impedance matrix elements are additionally evaluated in the case that the observation patch is located above or below the source patch in the vertical direction. To examine the fringing effect at the edges of the capacitor, the normalized capacitances are computed as a function of separation distance. After these results have been verified by Palmer’s formula, this method is extended to the computation of capacitances between two different size plates.