Ar formulation using edge elements, for the calculation of 3-D fields in superconducting magnets

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project is an accelerator for protons and heavy ions, to be installed at CERN. The field distribution in the superconducting LHC main dipoles is dominated by the coil configuration and is very sensitive to the conductor position. Therefore modelling errors on the coil geometry have to be avoided using a method which does not require the meshing of the coil. For the 2-D calculation of iron induced field effects, the reduced vector potential formulation with node-based elements was recently applied. This paper deals with the extension of the method to three dimensions