A general purpose tool for restoring inter-element continuity

The problem of coupling two boundaries with different numbers and locations of nodes, while ensuring the natural continuity conditions of the physical quantities, is addressed. To this end, a general-purpose tool for restoring interelement continuity is proposed, based on the alteration of the functional minimized. The new functional is expressed in terms of magnetic scalar potentials or vector potentials. Practical difficulties associated with the numerical integration and solution methods are tackled. Numerical examples show the capabilities of the proposed method as well as its limits