Materials modelling for computational electromagnetic software [for electric machines]

The use of computational electromagnetic design and analysis is widespread for electrical machines. Because of the cost of developing reliable, user friendly in-house codes, most manufacturers use commercial packages. The materials modelling capabilities of these codes are fairly simple. The paper briefly outlines their handling of soft and hard magnetic materials, including hysteresis, superconducting windings and shields, conductivity and anisotropic behaviour. The future challenges presented by high temperature superconductors are discussed and possible solutions to their representation proposed. The use of high performance rare earth magnets in many modern machines has also shown inadequacies. Methods for treating demagnetisation and recoil are suggested