This paper on "A General Approach to Electromagnetic Field Analysis" was presented at the NAFEMS World Congress on Design, Simulation & Optimisation: Reliability & Applicability of Computational Methods - 9-11 April 1997, Stuttgart, Germany.

Abstract

When a structural mechanics code like PERMAS is extended for electromagnetic field analysis, there are some joint tasks to be solved in order to achieve a really integrated product allowing for coupled analysis with mechanical and thermal analysis.
The functionality of electromagnetic field computations is fully integrated in PERMAS, i.e. all elements which are useable for mechanical or thermal analysis are also available in electromagnetic computations. In addition infinite elements are provided to model the unbounded domain. Hence the user may use the same model for different computations without changing it being also able to do coupled simulations in a very convenient way. The coupling to mechanical or thermal analysis is possible as well as the simulation of fully coupled phenomena like piezoelectric effects. Electrostatic problems (e.g. electro/magnetostatics, d.c. conduction with subsequent magnetostatics) as well as general electrodynamic analyses (e.g. eddy current, induction, resonant cavity or wave propagation) are supported.
The paper presents the theoretical basics and their implementation in PERMAS. Special emphasis is put on the field coupling feature. A set of example problems will demonstrate the range of applications.