Title: 3D modelling of electromagnetic fields: advantages and disadvantages of nodal or edge elements

Authors: B. Bandelie, F. Rioux-Damidau

Addresses: Institut d'Electronique Fondamentale, Universites Paris XI, URA CNRS 022, Bat 220, 91405 Orsay, France. ' Institut d'Electronique Fondamentale, Universites Paris XI, URA CNRS 022, Bat 220, 91405 Orsay, France

Abstract: Starting from the magnetic field formulation of magnetodynamics, we consider the coupling of a finite element method in the conductors with a boundary integral method for the description of the exterior region. We examine three different discretizations: one variable per edge, two variables per edge and nodal variables. We determine the precision on the magnetic field h and the current j = curl h as a function of the dimension of the mesh and of the CPU time in each case. We deduce the best-suited variable to the computation of each physical quantity.

Keywords: 3D modelling; boundary integral method; BIM; electromagnetic fields; finite element method; FEM; nodal element; edge element.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1995.062400

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1995 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.41 - 47

Published online: 05 Jun 2014 *

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