FEA Modeling

In order to properly analyze the electromagnetic properties of our design, finite element analysis (FEA) needed to be incorporated. FEA software easily simulates complex thermal/mechanical, fluid/structural and electrostatic/structural interactions. Two programs were utilized within the past year to produce these results: ANSYS and Opera-2d. We used two programs in order to compare and confirm our results with the theoretical calculations. While both programs should produce nearly identical results, they operate in different ways. ANSYS is capable of evaluating the applications listed above as well as coupled-field systems, while Opera-2d was specifically created to analyze electromagnetic systems. A very basic overview of the results obtained can be seen in the figures below.

How to analyze the design:

Since we were interested only in the electromagnetic analysis of the system, the electromagnets and permanent magnets sub-system were the only components needing to be evaluated. The option exists in both ANSYS and Opera to model the design in either three dimensions (3d) or two dimensions (2d). Two-dimensional analysis is usually chosen for its simplicity, when applicable, for both the solid modeling and finite element analysis is more complicated in three dimensional analysis. Therefore, our finite element analyses were performed using the two-dimensional variations of each program (hence Opera-2d). The diagram below shows the layout of the system modeled in both ANSYS and Opera-2d.

*Click on the pictures below to see larger image.

ANSYS	Opera-2d
Magnetic flux density while permanent magnet is immediately beside one electromagnet.
Zoomed view of picture above.
Magnetic flux density while permanent magnet is centered between electromagnets.