Dedicating Finite Volume Method to Electromagnetic Plasma Modeling: Circuit Breaker Application

For several applications including strong hydrodynamics constraints (like in a circuit breaker), finite element solvers are not suitable for fluid dynamical modeling. For these applications, the coupling between the computational fluid dynamics and the electromagnetism modeling is not easy. In this context, a magnetodynamic formulation is developed using the finite volume method to address specific issues in multiphysics involved in circuit breaker modeling. The principles of finite volume method, their using for the electromagnetism modeling, and multiphysics coupling method are described. Problems are expressed within current based T-T₀-phi formulation which differs drastically from other developments given in the context of finite volume method. Finally a circuit breaker simulation is carried out within a magnetostatic formulation.