If your design project involves any electromagnetic element – an
antenna, motor armature, solenoid, actuator (the list is pretty
long, actually), then you will be aware of the complex interactions
that can exist between the various components of your system. Moreover,
you will be acutely aware of your obligations regarding EMI/RFI
suppression and shielding, which will ultimately determine whether
your product is fit for market – or not, as the case may
be.
Well, as you may also be well aware, there is help at hand in
the form of software to help you simulate electromagnetic conditions
at the earliest iteration of your design and thus get your product
to market quickly with the minimum of rework. But there is a lot
of software out there, ranging in complexity and price, so I thought
it might be useful to look at a few recent releases within the
confines of this page.
One of the key players in this sector, Ansoft (www.ansoft.com/maxwell3d),
has just released version 11 of its Maxwell 3D electromagnetic
field simulation software for electromechanical system analysis.
The product is capable of static, frequency domain and time-varying
electromagnetic field simulations in complex 3D structures. Integrated
into version 11 is Ansoft’s RMxprt, an analytical design
tool for rotating electrical machines. The interoperability of
these two modules means that designers can use the latter to calculate
performance parameters, determine lamination and winding schemes,
create 3D models and define materials for Maxwell. Thus with the
model neatly defined in RMxprt, the designer (of a motor, for example)
can move quickly on to the detailed 3D non-linear transient analysis
(including the effects of motion) in the Maxwell v11 environment.
At the other end of the frequency spectrum, Vector Fields’ (www.vectorfields.com)
Concerto – now in version 5 – offers designers a choice
of two of the company’s proven simulation environments for
the design of antennas, microwave couplers, filters and microwave
heating systems. These are: QUICKWAVE (finite difference time domain)
and CLASP (method of moments frequency domain). New materials options
for Quickwave, including dispersive media and magnetised ferrites,
have been added, while the thermal analysis module mow supports
heat diffusion and a link to Fluent’s (www.fluent.com) CFD
code.
Flomerics’ high-frequency electromagnetic simulation offering
is MicroStripes (www.microstripes.com), now in version 7.0. Based
on the 3D time domain TLM method – which is claimed to be
rather faster and more memory-efficient than previous methods,
this solver features automatic meshing; the algorithm mimics what
experienced users do when they manually fine tune the mesh. Flomerics
claims that the accuracy of the automated mesh is as good as manually
tuned meshes in the vast majority of cases. This obviously speeds
things up for the novice user, who can proceed with the simulation
rather more quickly.
Once the concept design is established, the user identifies geometric
entities as variables, picks upper and lower limits for each variable
and selects a step size. The software then generates as many simulation
iterations as are required to completely explore the defined design
space. The results of each simulation are plotted on a single graph
so the user can quickly determine which design parameter values
provide optimal performance.
As usual, space permits just a passing reference to my other selections
so be sure to visit the following companies’ web sites. Another
method of moments program for electromagnetic simulation is provided
by EMCoS (www.emcos.com). The company’s TriD software has powerful
calculation engines, and even on a reasonably high-spec desktop PC
is capable of solving problems with upwards of 40,000 unknown quantities.
MagNet, from Infolytica (www.infolytica.com) is now in version 6.21.
Speed is of the essence with this electromagnetic field simulation
software – the latest version offers speed improvements on
various solvers of around 30%. The time-harmonic solver is nearly
twice as fast as the previous version. Others to check out are Integrated
Engineering Software’s (www.integratedsoft.com) Magneto 6.2 – a
2D magnetic field analysis product, and CEDRAT’s (www.cedrat.com)
impressive range of electromagnetic solvers, including Flux and a
co-simulation of Flux and The MathWorks’ (www.mathworks.com)
Simulink simulation and model based design software.
Dr
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