Abstract #3865

A Comparison of FDTD-Solvers for Simulation of a 31P Birdcage Coil at 1.5 T

Andre Kuehne¹, Helmar Waiczies^1,2, Sairamesh Raghuraman³, Tobias Wichmann⁴, Titus Lanz⁴, Frank Seifert¹, Bernd Ittermann¹

¹Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany; ²Experimental & Clinical Research Center (ECRC), Max-Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany; ³MRB Research Centre, Wrzburg, Rimpar, Germany; ⁴Rapid Biomed, Rimpar, Germany

FDTD simulations are an important tool to calculate SAR values required for safe coil operation limits. After being presented with discrepancies between simulations using different software packages, the coil in question, a ³¹P birdcage coil, was simulated using three different FDTD programs (XFdtd, MWS, SEMCAD) and the results compared throughout the simulation volume. Possible sources of error, mainly different standards for scaling to different input power measures, are identified. When identical scaling standards are applied, the obtained results match very closely.