Andre Kuehne1, Helmar Waiczies1,2,
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.
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