Some users have reported intermittent plotting problems when working with large meshes (i.e., millions of elements) in the 2D and 3D programs. The reason I didn’t notice anything is that I always try to avoid large meshes. It’s almost always possible to analyze applications to employ symmetry and to eliminate unnecessary details. Furthermore, solutions with a [...]
As I mentioned in previous posts, Latex is by far the best choice for writing scientific articles and books. In comparison to word processors, Latex requires a significant learning investment in the beginning, but offers smooth sailing thereafter. To put this in perspective, if you are going to spend a lifetime writing scientific papers is it [...]
In a previous post, I spoke of useful design information that is oddly difficult to find on the Internet. In that case the topic was saturation curves for common soft magnetic materials. I recently had a similar experience in another application area — the maximum sustainable electric field in vacuum devices. The issue is critical for [...]
To reduce the possibility of breakdowns, a common goal in high-voltage engineering is to minimize peak electric field values on electrodes for a given voltage. One example is the choice of conductor and shield radii for a coaxial cable. For a given shield radius ro, what choice of the conductor radius ri gives the lowest electric? [...]
In the tutorial Designing permanent-magnet solenoids with PerMag, I discussed how permanent magnets with radial magnetization could be used to generate a solenoid field. An annular magnet with pure radial magnetization is impossible to fabricate with modern high-energy-product materials. Instead, it must be approximated with a set of Ns wedge sectors, each with linear magnetization. There [...]