A Mesh-Insensitive Methodology for Magnetic Force Computation in Finite-Element Analysis

A novel mesh-insensitive methodology for magnetic force computation is presented. The force value is obtained by integration on several layers of mesh elements around the objects on which the force needs to be computed. The number of layers can be automatically determined during computation and the force computation on objects touching each other can also be evaluated accurately. The computation results are compared with those obtained using traditional Maxwell stress tensor method and normal virtual work method. The results confirm that the sensitivity of the computed force to the mesh quality is greatly reduced and the accuracy of the force computation is increased.