Maxwell 3D Solutions
Maxwell 3D® supports the following five types of solutions:
- Electric 3D fields, which can fall in one of three categories:
- Electrostatic 3D fields in dielectrics caused by a user-specified distribution of voltages and charges. Additional computed quantities you can specify include torque, force, and capacitances.
- Electric 3D fields in conductors, characterized by a spatial distribution of voltage, electric field, and DC current density. The main additional quantity in this case is power loss.
- A combination of the first two with conduction solutions being used as boundary conditions for an electrostatic problem.
- Magnetostatic linear and nonlinear 3D fields caused by a user-specified distribution of DC current density, voltage, permanent magnets, or externally applied magnetic fields. Additional computed quantities you can specify include torque, force, and inductances (self and mutual).
- Harmonic (Eddy current)
(sinusoidal variation in time) steady-state 3D magnetic
fields with pulsation-induced eddy currents in massive (solid) conductors
caused by one of the following: by a user-specified distribution of AC
currents (all with the same frequency but with possibly different initial
phase angles), or by externally applied magnetic fields.
The electric field solution is correct inside a conductor due to Ohm's law and self-consistent current densities (including current-bunching in solid conductors). Outside a conductor, Maxwell 3D's electric field permits some wave effects, such as propagation to a radiation boundary, but is limited in application and will ignore capacitance effect along source conductors (no charge-bunching). In general, there is no change in the electrical phase angle of the applied current source along the length of a conductor.
- Transient Magnetic (time domain) 3D magnetic fields caused by permanent magnets and windings supplied by voltage and/or current sources with arbitrary variation as functions of time; electrical circuits will be connected with the windings. Rotational or translational motion effects can also be included in the simulation.
- Transient Magnetic with A-Phi Formulation (time domain) 3D magnetic fields caused by permanent magnets, voltages, currents, and windings supplied by voltage and/or current sources with arbitrary variation as functions of time; electrical circuits can be coupled with the field solution via the windings. Displacement current (capacitive) effect can also be included in the simulation.
- Transient Electric (time domain) 3D electric fields caused by time-varying voltages, charge distributions, or current excitations in inhomogeneous materials. The transient electric field simulator computes time-varying electric fields. Electric potential is the solution quantity.
The complex functionality built into the Maxwell 3D solvers is accessed through the main user interface (called the desktop). With the version 11 interface and later, you can model the problem in a fairly arbitrary order (rather than following the steps in a precise order as was required in previous versions of Maxwell).
This flexibility allows experienced users to develop a modeling style that suits their preferences. Once the model is created, the automated Maxwell solution sequence takes over and fully controls the solution process without any interaction from the user. When the solution becomes available, the user can perform a variety of postprocessing tasks as required by the design application.