Surface charge analysis in eddy current problems

To estimate the characteristics of electric machines that have conductors of complicated shape, it is effective to analyze the surface charge related to eddy current phenomena. However, the eddy current field is generally treated as a quasi-static field in which the displacement current is neglected and the electric field is not defined in the nonconductive region in the calculation process. Therefore, when we use only theA-phi finite element method (FEM) as a field analysis method, it is difficult to calculate the surface charge directly at the interface between conductive and nonconductive regions. In this paper, with this background, we propose a novel method of analysis of the surface charge based on both the A-phi FEM with edge elements and the integral equation. This approach enables us to precisely calculate the surface charge. Some numerical results that demonstrate the validity of the proposed method are also presented, such as the surface charge analysis of linear induction motors for evaluating the relationships among the surface charge, eddy current, and conductor shape. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.