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A high-performance computing procedure for the evaluation of 3D coils inductance

Andrea Gaetano Chiariello (Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, Seconda Università di Napoli, AVERSA (CE), Italy)
Alessandro Formisano (Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, Seconda Università di Napoli, AVERSA (CE), Italy)
Raffaele Martone (Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, Seconda Università di Napoli, AVERSA (CE), Italy)
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Abstract

Purpose

Inductances of complex coils, in the presence of linear materials only, can be computed by discretizing coils into simpler elements, whose magnetic behavior is analytically expressible, and suitably combining elementary contributions. Reliable results require high numbers of elements. In such cases, advantages can be taken from Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) capabilities of dealing efficiently with high numbers of repeated simple computational tasks. The purpose of this paper is to set up a fast and prompt numerical procedure to cope with the above described task.

Design/methodology/approach

The coils are first decomposed into current segments, taking into account accuracy, relative position and shape of coils to determine the number of segments. An analytical formula is then used to compute elementary contributions using GPUs to speed up the process, and finally superposition is used to recover the result.

Findings

The main advantages of the proposed approach are first demonstrated using simple examples, with analytical solutions, to validate the method accuracy and promptness, then more complex cases are taken to demonstrate its generality.

Research limitations/implications

The method is intrinsically limited by the linearity assumption, excluding the presence of magnetic materials. The adopted formulas require in addition that coils must lie in free space.

Practical implications

The proposed method can help in the design of complex coils or coils systems, where the performance depends on total magnetic energy or magnetic forces among coils.

Originality/value

The paper presents an original implementation in GPU-based computational environment of a procedure to compute inductances, based on the superposition of a high number of current segments. The procedure includes an original method to self-adaptively define number and position of current segments used in the coils discretization.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Mr M. Nicolazzo from CREATE and Mr M. Fatica from Nvidia for fruitful discussions, and valuable hints and suggestions. This work was partly supported by Seconda Università di Napoli under PRIST grant “Generazione distribuita di energia da fonti tradizionali e rinnovabili: aspetti ingegneristici e giuridici-economici-ambientali”, partly by NVIDIA Corporation and partly by ENEA/EURATOM CREATE Association.

Citation

Chiariello, A.G., Formisano, A. and Martone, R. (2015), "A high-performance computing procedure for the evaluation of 3D coils inductance", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 248-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-03-2014-0070

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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