Numerical simulation of coupled magnetic and

thermal fields in two-bars line

ION CRSTEA
Department of Computer Engineering and Communication, University of Craiova
Str. Doljului nr. 14, bl. C8c, sc.1, apt.7, Craiova
ROMANIA
incrst@yahoo.com
DANIELA CRSTEA
Department of Technical Disciplines, Industrial Group of Railways, Craiova
ROMANIA
danacrst@yahoo.com
ALEXANDRU CRSTEA

Faculty of Automation, University of Craiova
ROMANIA

Abstract The thermal effect of the transient magnetic field in a transmission line is considered. The system
consists of two copper conductors with equal but opposite currents inside rectangular ferromagnetic coating. A
plane-parallel model is considered both for the magnetic field and for the thermal field.
The problem is described by a coupled set of equations. The equations are coupled because most of the heat
sources are the effects of the eddy-currents induced in the conductors and the material properties are
temperature-dependent. In our target example, the coupling between the two fields is the heat source and
electric conductivity.
The scope of this paper is to present some computational aspects in simulation of coupled magnetic field and
heat dissipation problem in conductors. The numerical model is based on the finite element method.

Keywords Coupled fields; Numerical analysis; Finite element method.

1 Introduction
The bus bars are essentially components of electrical
distribution and transmission networks. In such
components the currents follow paths determined by
the conductor shape. In this kind of structures we
know the applied voltage at the bus bar terminals and
we seek the current density distribution within the
conductor, or we know the source current. We are
interested in the computation of some relevant
parameters or global quantities of the physical system.
In this work we consider the problem of the
distribution of eddy currents in a symmetric double
line of bus bars C
1
and C
2
(figure 1) with equal but
opposite currents of domestic frequency. The bars
carry electric current with variable frequency and
amplitude.
Conductor caries the forward current which is
returned through the other conductor. Although the
system of currents may be alternating, for computing
some global quantities like mutual inductance we can
employ a DC system. If we are interested in local
heating of conductors and sheath we must consider
the AC system which is different from DC system.
The AC system tends to force currents to flow along
the outer regions of the conductor.
In most practical applications, the bars are replaced
with stranded conductors (that is, made of several
tightly wound strands of conductor insulated from
each other). In this way the skin effect is not possible
because the cross section of each strand is small
compared with the depth of penetration.


2 Modelling of coupled fields
The two square cross-section bars are contained
inside rectangular sheath or coating (see figure 1).
Between conductors and sheath there is air or
insulation. We shall study the system for short-
circuited ends (zero voltage). The flux density is
assumed to lie in the plane of model (Oxy) while the
vector of the electric current density J and the vector
potential A are orthogonal on it. The axis Oz is
orthogonal on the plane Oxy.

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2.1 Electromagnetic field analysis
A complete physical description of any
electromagnetic device is given by Maxwells
equations that represent topological relationships
between the magnetic and electric fields. Here we
have an infinitely long structure with two massive
conductors so that we can consider a two-dimensional
problem in the coordinate system Oxy.
The basic assumptions are:
1. the electric field intensity is assumed to be z-
directed;
2. the magnetic field intensity lies in the cross-
sectional plane of the bar;
3. in a vector potential formulation with A - the
magnetic vector potential, A has a single
component along the z-axis;
4. The proximity effect and the eddy-current effect
are considered.

Note: We will denote the z-directed components of
A, E and J simply A, E and J.
With the assumptions above, Maxwells equations
lead to the well-known diffusion-type differential
equation in terms of the magnetic vector potential A
in 2D.
The mathematical model for the electromagnetic
field using A-formulation is a 2D-scalar model in (x-
y) plane [1]:
s
J
t
A
A =

+ ) ( (1)
where: J
s
is the source current density, is the
magnetic reluctivity, and is the electrical
conductivity that depends on temperature.
Eqn. 1 is applicable to limited cases. These cases
are those in which the eddy current return path is
considered to be outside the problem domain, implied
by symmetry boundary conditions and in which no
spatial variation of current density is allowed within
the driving conductors.
We note that the current density J may be regarded
as decomposable into a term obtained we neglect the
skin effect, and a term due to skin effect. The axes of
symmetry boundary conditions are set. At the
horizontal axis of symmetry H
t
= 0. At the vertical
axis of symmetry B
n
=0, that is A=constant on the
axis. If a coating surrounds the bus bars with relative
permeability very large, we assume that the flux is
contained within the coating, so we put a Dirichlet's
condition on the outer surface of coating.


2.2 Thermal field analysis
The heat transfer problem in homogeneous orthotropic
material is described in terms of the temperature T ([1],
[2]):
q T T k T T (c
t
= +

] ) ( [ ] ) )( [ (2)
where: k is the tensor of thermal conductivity; is
the specific density; c is the specific heat that depends
on T; q is the density of the heat sources that depends
on T.
For the thermal field we consider two types of
boundary conditions. One is a Dirichlet's condition for
T on the boundary of the spatial domain , that is:
) , , ( ) , , ( t y x T t y x T
D
=

where T
D
is a specified function on the boundary.
The other condition is a general Neumann's boundary
condition, combining a given boundary heat flux with
convection and radiation:
) ( ) (
4 4

+ + =

T T h T T q
n
T
k
n
(3)
with:

T - the surrounding medium temperature, q

n

the heat flux and n the outward unit normal on the
boundary. In Eqn. (3), and h are the convection and
radiation coefficients.


2.3 Coupling terms
The electromagnetic system and the thermal system
are coupled through the heat source q and the material
properties.
For numerical modelling of the coupled fields the
heat source term is of great importance. For the sheath
the electric power density q can be expressed in terms
of time derivative of the magnetic potential A:
|

\
|

t
A
= q
2
(4)
In our work we consider that the sources of the
magnetic field have sinusoidal time dependence and
we neglect the effects due to displacement currents.
The magnetic field source is J
s
the external
current density that may depend on space (x,y) and
time t. In other words J
s
is the main source for the
Fig.1. An axial section
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induced eddy currents (J
e
=-jA). In the eddy-current
problems the term q has the following form:
= E J q
and describes the time averaged Joule heat power
absorption density.
In the case of the harmonic field, RMS value of the
magneto thermal source is:
*
2
2
A A = q

(5)
where A
*
is the complex conjugate of A.
The electric conductivity depends highly on
temperature T. Many researchers over the world came
to the conclusion that the conductivity can be described
by an empirical formula, which is given by:
) exp(
0
T =
in which
0
stands for the conductivity at a reference
temperature of 20
0
C and is the temperature
dependency coefficient (material property).


3 A numerical model based on the finite
element method
The finite element method was used for the numerical
modelling both magnetic field and thermal field. In
the 2D harmonic problems, the vector potential A is a
complex variable and can be written as:
I
jA
R
A A + =
with: j the imaginary unit, A
R
, J
R
, A
I
and J
I
the real
and the imaginary parts of A and J
S
.
The mathematical model for the magnetic field
becomes:
0 ) ( = + +
R
J
I
A
R
A (6)
0 ) ( = +
I
J
R
A
I
A
The heat source from the heat conduction equation
(2) is:
)
2 2
(
2
2
1
I
A
R
A q + =
We limit our discussion to the problems where the
eddy currents generated by the magnetic field
represent the main heating source for the sheath. In
the conductors the heat sources are both driven
currents and eddy currents. The two mathematical
models are coupled and non-linear because of the
variation of the material properties with the
temperature. Also, the heat source is another coupling
term. How we must solve the coupled model is an
open problem.


3.1 Numerical model based on FEM
We consider the finite element method with linear
elements. The same geometric mesh is used for the two
fields described by Eqn.1 and Eqn. 2.
The finite element method for the two-coupled
magnetic and thermal fields leads to the following
system of equations [3]:
(
(
(

=
(
(
(

(
(
(

(
(
(

T
I
R
T
I
R
I
R
TT TI TR
IT II IR
RT RI RR
R
R
R
F
F
F
T
A
A
M M M
M M M
M M M

or, more general, an algebraic system of the form:
} { } { } ]{ [ R F x K =
where: [K] is the coupling matrix, {x} is the unknown
vector, {F} is the source vector, and {R} is the
residual vector.
For an element defined by the domain , the
components of the sublocks from the coupled system
are [3]:
[M
RR
]:

= d N N M
j i R ii

[M
IR
]=-[M
IR
]:

= d N N M
j i ir 0

[M
TR
]:

= d A N N
t
M
k
r j i ij
) (
2
2



[M
TT
]:

+
+ =
d N cN
dl N hN d N N k t M
j i
j i j i ij

) (

[M
RT
]=[M
IT
]=[0]
{F
R
}:

= d J N F
R i i 0

{F
I
}:

= d J N F
I i i 0

{F
T
}:



+ = d T N c dl hT t F
k
i i
) (
) (
The algorithm in the pseudo-code has the following
form:
1. Initialise the iterations counter n 0.
2. Initialise A
R
(n)
, A
I
(n)
, T
(n)
.
3. Compute the physical properties (T), (A,T),
k(T), (c)(T).
4. Solve the numerical models for A
R
(n+1)
, A
I
(n+1)
,
T
(n+1)
.
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5. Do the convergence test. If this test is not true
go to the step 3, else assign nn+1 and
compute the next time step
6. Go to 3
The superscript n denotes the iteration number and
t is the time step.
In Fig. 2 the geometry of our target example is
shown. The cross section of the bar is a square with the
side d=16 [mm]. The width of the coating is 2 [mm].
The distances OA=14 [mm] and OB=28 [mm]. Because
of the symmetry of geometrical and physical properties,
only a quarter of the whole domain is considered (see
Fig. 3).

In the area of the software products some physical
characteristics must be considered. These
characteristics can simplify the simulation programs
and increase the performance of the software products
in terms of computer resources [3].
Some relevant aspects in the design of the CAD
software for coupled magneto-thermal problems are
([1]-[2]):
The thermal source term in the heat equation can
be defined by the time-mean of the ohmic power
loss. The motivation is simple: the time constant
of the magnetic phenomenon is small compared
to the diffusion time of the heat transfer.
A cascade solution may be more efficient than a
fully coupled model. In some applications there is
a strict coupling between magnetic and thermal
equation at each time instant, but in many
situations we can split the analysis of the
magnetic field by the analysis of the thermal field.
It can be used a predefined temperature profile of
a material for updating the magnetic field at
specified temperatures. It is the case of electrical
furnaces. For example, at Curie temperature the
material properties change dramatically. After
this critical point the magnetic field equation must
be updated.
The analysis domain can be divided in more
subdomains with different solvers for the coupled
problems.
Generally, in the numerical simulation of transient
coupled field problems, it is necessary to solve two
systems of equations: one for the electromagnetic
field and the other for the thermal field. These
systems are strongly coupled and non-linear, since the
thermal sources represent the electromagnetic field
effects and the magnetic and thermal properties of the
material change with the temperature. This inherent
coupling of the two mathematical models leads to an
increase in the numerical model dimensions due to the
vectorial nature of the electromagnetic quantities.
The mathematical models of the two-coupled fields
are:
the transient heat conduction equation with
boundary conditions of convection and
radiation type
Maxwell equations in potential formulations
(especially in multi-potential formulations)
The constructive particularities of the
electromagnetic device must be accounted for in a
numerical model in order to develop efficient
computer program. For example, the main
particularities of the heating problem are:
The thermal time constants are bigger than the
electric time constants.
The heat source is the power dissipated by the
eddy currents so that the accuracy of the
computation of the eddy current density
influences the problem accuracy
The bars are generally composed by only a
single material so that it is not necessary to
include discontinuities in the electric
conductivity
The variations of the electromagnetic properties
(permeability, electric conductivity) are
continuous.
The particularities of the problem can be exploited
in some directions although a unified approach is a
desirable requirement for an expert system in the area

Fig. 3. The mesh
Fig. 2. The geometrical configuration

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of coupled problems. The following directions can be
exploited in our target example:
The electromagnetic computation can be done as
a sequence of sinusoidal electrical steady-state
The most important electromagnetic field
parameter from the viewpoint of the thermal field
is the current density so that the computation
accuracy of this quantity is very important
The lack of discontinuities in electric conductivity
allows the use of magnetic vector potential
formulation
The computation accuracy of J depends of the
simulation method. For example, if J is derived by a
curl operation as J = curl H (Ampere's law), the
accuracy of J is not the same accuracy as H. If the
density is directly computed as J=-jA, then the
accuracy of J is the same accuracy as A.


3.2 Numerical results
In Fig.3 the meshed domain is shown and has the
cross section 0.056 x 0.056 [m
2
]. The cross section of
a bar is 0.016 x 0.016 [m
2
]. Because of the symmetry
consideration, it is only necessary to model one
quarter of the problem space (the upper-right quarter
of the cross section). In this way the computational
effort is reduced.
The physical properties of the device are presented
in the Table 1. The frequency of the excitation current
is 50 Hz and has the amplitude 800 [A].
For the thermal field we considered the convection
coefficient of outer coating surface equal to 12
[W/K.m
2
] and ambient temperature equal to 293 [K]
(or 20
0
C).
Table 1
Bar Sheath Air
Conductivity [S/m]
6.7 10
7
4.5 10
7
0
Relative permeability
1 100 1
Specific heat [J/Kg.K] 385 200 0
Thermal conductivity
[W/K.m]
389 10 0.0
1
Specific density
[Kg/m
3
]
7800 8700 0

The numerical results for the electromagnetic field
are shown in the figures 4, 5 and 6 for a specified
time interval. The numerical model is based on the
finite element method with triangular elements [4].
The accuracy of the eddy current computation
influences the accuracy of the heat transfer
computation. In the numerical models the effect of the
proximity was considered. The distance between the
bars influences the heat distribution and this
parameter can be considered as an optimisation
parameter.
A numerical model based on the finite element
method accomplishes the heat transfer computation
[3]. The same geometrical model is used both in
magnetic and thermal fields. The numerical results for
the temperature distribution in some interest points
are presented in the Figures 7 and 8.
The final temperature distribution on the center-line
is shown in the Fig. 7 for a time interval equal to
20000 [s]. The temperature variations in time for the
points O, A and B are plotted in the Fig. 8. The
temperature difference between the central point and

Fig. 5 Total current

Fig. 6 Joule effect in the analysis domain

Fig. 4 Density of the eddy-currents in the device
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the environment can be reduced by a forced-
convection. In our target example a free-convection
was considered. The value of the convection
coefficient depends on the temperature but in our
example we considered a constant value.
The values of the physical parameters in the Table 1
are for the reference temperature 293 [K]. Some of
these values depend on the temperature and influence
the accuracy of the numerical results. From the
numerical simulation the temperature- drop between
the centre of the bar and the initial tempertaure is
338[K] at the final time in the case of the coupled
models. In the case of the independent problems the
drop temperature is around 40
0
C. In other words, a
coupled model offers more precise results.


4 Conclusions
In this work we presented a coupled magneto-thermal
problem in time-harmonic or steady-state conditions
for the magnetic field. The basic equation for the
steady-state alternating current (AC) for linear
problems is obtained by introducing concept of vector
potential magnetic vector A. The general time-
dependent case requires numerical solutions of Eqn.
(1) and involves considerably more computing time
than the harmonic case. The case of excitation current
of different forms involves the time discretization of
the magnetic equation. In this case the time-step
length must be selected to maintain the relative error
between prescribed bounds. Initially we select a basic
step for time. A strategy to control the accuracy of the
numerical simulation is to compute the difference in
the computed values for both a basic step and for
two half steps and then proceed further by either
doubling or halving the basic step length to constrain
this difference between prescribed bounds.
As target example we presented a numerical model
for an infinitely long structure with two massive
conductors so that we considered a two-dimensional
problem. We were interested in local heating of
conductors and sheath so that we had to consider the
AC system, which is different from DC system. The
AC system tends to force currents to flow along the
outer regions of the conductor so that the temperature
is not uniformly distributed in the physical systems.
Local heating is of interest for the designers of these
systems.
We considered the plane-parallel fields with the
time-harmonic magnetic field. We limited our
discussion to the problems where the eddy currents
generated by the magnetic field represent the main
heating source. The two mathematical models are
coupled and non-linear because of the variation of the
material properties with the temperature. This aspect
was included in the model.

References
[1]. Crstea, D., CAD tools for magneto-thermal and
electric-thermal coupled fields. Research Report
in a CNR-NATO Grant. University of Trento.
Italy, 2004.
[2]. Crstea, D., Crstea, I. CAD in electrical
engineering. Textbook. Editor: Sitech, Craiova.
2000.
[3]. Feliachi, M., Develey, G. Magneto-Thermal
Behavior Finite Element Analysis for
Ferromagnetic Materials in Induction Heating
Devices. In: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics,
Vol. 27, No. 6, November 1991.
[4]. *** QuickField program Version 5.3. Year
2005. Users guide. Tera Analysis.Co

Fig. 8. The temperature vs. time in points O
(green), A (red), and B (blue)

Fig. 7. The temperature along the centerline OB
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