List of Flux 2022 new features

This feature was already available in Flux 2D and Flux 3D Magnetic Steady State AC applications and is now available for Flux 2D Transient Magnetic application. The change application feature may be used to move from an application to another one.

A foil coil is a winding obtained from a thin, rectangular, metallic sheet folded in a spiral-like shape. This kind of coil design is common in electromagnetic devices such as power transformers and reactors.

The current density in a foil-wound coil fed by a time-varying source depends on skin and proximity effects. Since the foil is usually very thin and made from a material with a high electrical conductivity, the skin effect along its thickness is negligible. On the other hand, the current density in each foil turn may vary along the axial direction of the coil as a function of both position and frequency.

This behavior is specific to foil coils and influences the Joule losses developed in the coil. Thus, Flux now provides a new subtype of the coil conductor region with losses and detailed geometric description that implements a homogenization technique to represent this type of coil efficiently in its 2D Steady State AC application.

Using this new coil conductor region subtype spares the user from representing each turn of the foil coil with an individual solid conductor region (linked to its corresponding FE coupling component in a complicated electric circuit). While this latter approach is also legitimate and rigorous, it is usually very time consuming to set up in Flux due to the elaborate geometry and the refined mesh required. Moreover, the solving time with the new foil-wound coil conductor region subtype is significantly reduced when compared to a solid conductor approach.

Several performance and stability issues linked to the Preisach B(H) material properties have been corrected for the Flux 2022 release. For a complete list of issues, the reader is referred to the Fixed Defects section of this release note.

Consequently, this feature has been promoted to Standard mode in Flux 2022 and is now considered fully supported and qualified. This transition into Standard mode also signifies that the compatibility of Flux projects containing this feature is guaranteed from now on.

Names of the Preisach B(H) material properties changed slightly. For the sake of clarity, they are now called in Flux 2022:

Furthermore, a new documentation chapter providing an overview of the Preisach-type model implemented in Flux and guidelines on how to create a material with this kind of B(H) magnetic property is now available in the user guide.

• New progress bar during solving process
• Post-process with new command
• Resume an interrupted test

Now the macros devoted to Axial Flux Internal Rotor (AFIR) machines include a complete set of functionalities allowing to generate ready-to-solve thermal projects. Therefore, electromagnetic-thermal design fully automatized is available. For new macros:

• AFIR_THERMAL.PFM

  Create an AFIR geometry adapted for thermal simulation, with almost all combinations of poles pairs and slots, while editing most of the geometric parameters

• CONV_MAG_THERM.PFM

  Translate an AFIR geometry generated by INIT_AFIR macro into another adapted to run thermal simulation. More specifically, that means to transform non-mesh coils into meshed regions

• STEADY_STATE_THERMAL.PFM

  Instead of writing a scenario for a steady state thermal application, this macro will directly mesh and solve the project. To do so a geometry must be previously generated using INIT_AFIR or AFIR_THERMAL

• TRANSIENT_STATE_THERMAL.PFM

  Instead of writing a scenario for a transient thermal application, this macro will directly mesh and solve the project. To do so a geometry must be previously generated using INIT_AFIR or AFIR_THERMAL.

A bug which avoided correct generation of AFIR machines without symmetries has been corrected.