Screening applied to the numerical modeling of electromagnetic devices

Electromagnetic modeling and optimization problems usually involve a large number of varying parameters. A designer may use different kinds of models during the design optimization process. Some models, e.g. finite-element model (FEM), can be very precise, but require long computation time, thus limiting the number of design parameters. Therefore, the designer ought to use a screening process to reduce the number of parameters. This is achieved using the design of experiments (DOE) approach. Hence, combining FEM and DOE is a practical way to be used in electromagnetic prototyping where the FEM is used for an efficient virtual prototyping and the DOE approach is used to investigate the effect of all possible parameters of a given device. This paper presents the application of DOE as a preliminary step for the electromagnetic modeling and optimization process. To illustrate this technique we apply it to workshop TEAM 25 problem.