Material Identification Tool

To help the user in these tasks preceding the creation of a material, Flux provides a unified Material Identification tool based on the Altair Compose environment.

In Flux Supervisor, at the bottom left part of the window, the button Material Identification allows the user to launch the provided tool dedicated to the parameter identification of a magnetic material model (either in the case of a B(H) property and of an a posteriori iron losses model).



図 1. Button to run the Flux Material identification tool

Please remark that the Material Identification module requires the Altair® Compose® environment to be executed. Consequently, the user must install both Altair® Flux® and Altair® Compose® on his computer to perform a material identification with this tool. Both programs are available for download at Altair One.

The following procedure is required to ensure that Flux and Compose are properly linked:
  • click on the Supervisor's Options button and then select Coupled software under Acces Path.
  • then set the Compose environment script path to the file Compose.bat in the Compose installation folder. The path to this file should be similar to Compose_Installation_Folder\Compose\ in the case of a standard installation.
Once the applications are linked, clicking on the Material Identification button should launch both Compose and the identification tool in Altair Compose's own environment, as shown in the figure below. The Flux Material Identification main panel will then invite the user to choose which kind of B(H) magnetic property or iron losses model identification he wants to perform.


図 2. Flux Material Identification panel after a successful startup.

Example of application

For most of the materials models in the Flux Material Identification tool, the identification consists of a 3-step procedure. The general workflow is described below:

  • Step 1: After choosing a specific type of B(H) magnetic property or an iron losses model, the Flux Material Identification tool will ask for a file containing magnetic measurements representing the behavior of the material subjected to identification. The input data required by the Flux Material Identification tool is given by a .CSV* or a .XLSX* file containing magnetic measurements. The file content and format depend on the specific kind of model being identified, as detailed in the next section.
  • Step 2: Once the file is correctly loaded, the identification algorithm launches automatically and finds the best model parameter set fitting the selected model. The results are displayed automatically in the graph window, as shown in the figure below. The red lines represent the reconstructed behavior provided by the identified model, while the blue lines correspond to the source measurement file. Depending on the model, the user may consider adjusting the parameters iteratively with the sliders on the left side of the panel.


    図 3. B(H) curves displayed using the analytic saturation + knee adjustment (arctg, 3 coef) model. In red , the fitted B(H), with the identified parameters appearing on the left side of the panel. The source B(H) measurements are shown in blue.
  • Step 3: Another feature of this panel is the possibility to export the pyFlux command containing the identified model parameters of the material under identification. This export is achieved by clicking on the button Save pyFlux. The pyFlux command will be directly printed in the Compose console and may be copied and pasted in Flux's Console, leading to an automatic creation of the material in a Flux project. This action also creates a python file containing the pyFlux command at the same directory where the measurements are located. With the help of this file, the material may be alternatively created in a Flux project by clicking on : Project > Command file > Run a python file.