Numerical analysis of electromagnetic fields by Proper Generalized Decomposition in electrical machines

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Kay Hameyer
• Subject Area: Electrical Energy Systems, Power Management, Power Electronics, Electrical Machines and Drives
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 347941356

For the development and improvement of electromagnetic circuits, numerical methods are generally used nowadays. For the analysis of problems concerning electrical machines the Finite Element Method is commonly applied due to the complicated geometries. The evaluation and explicit analysis of the simulated field solution is performed in a post-process. State of the art applications for the numerical methods are two- and numerically extensive three-dimensional models. Each simulation represents one specific defined field problem, each with its specific defined boundary conditions. Therefore, variations, whether of geometry-, material- or excitation-parameters, are performed a-priori in a strict and determined sequences of the numerical analysis chain.In the case a design engineer spontaneously wishes to vary one or more parameter, it is not possible to see the direct impact of the changes on the field solution due to the long computation time in todays used numerical analysis chain. The proposed project will be a significant step towards a numerical real-time simulation in electromagnetics.The model order reduction of the defined electromagnetic field problem is an important key to reduce the computation time significantly. Therefore, in this project model order reduction methods are studied for their feasibility to magnetic field problems which can be found e.g. in the field of electric machine analysis.The project aims on the realization of model order reduction methods for non-linear, time- and excitation-dependent electromagnetic field problems which are common tasks in the analysis of electrical machines. The applications of model order reduction on such field problems is not existent and therefore new.The results of the first two years of the accepted actually running project indicate clearly, that the Proper Generalized Decomposition is feasible for application in the field of electromagnetics. The approach of the Proper Generalized Decomposition can be employed into the Finite Element Method and by the combination with the in the first part of the running project newly developed error criteria a general use for different problem classes is given. Static as well as transient problems have been solved with this approach and the degrees of freedom were significantly reduced. In combination with the consecutive studies of the project it will be possible to isolate local effects in the solution domain with a defined accuracy to reduce the numerical effort for the simulation of the overall problem domain in case of a variation of parameter. This methodology will improve and simplify the analysis of locally concentrated effects of the magnetic field. An example for such an analysis is the local loss distribution in the iron core of electrical machines.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants