The efficiency of two-mesh error estimator for finite element analysis of two-dimensional electromagnetic wave scattering problems was studied in this paper. The aimed accuracy can be achieved very economically by the combined use of the mesh generator for the triangulation of arbitrary planar domains and an enhanced two-mesh comparison error estimator. The modified two-mesh error estimator allows adaptive meshes to be constructed directly from a pair of uniformly refined meshes to achieve an overall higher rate of convergence. The efficiency of this method compares favourably with that of the classical recovery method of smoothed gradient. Examples of adaptive refinement analysis for electromagnetic field scattering problems of various characteristics are presented to show the performance of the proposed scheme. The numerical results are compared to those from the standard recovery method.

adaptive analysis, finite element method, electromagnetic scattering.