Specify the electromagnetics edge formulation by choosing Main Menu> Preferences> Electromagnetics: Magnetic-Edge from the GUI. Doing so enables you to filter out other commands not involved in edge analysis.

Define a jobname and title for your analysis. To do so, use the commands shown below:

Enter the preprocessor to begin defining your model:

Choose element type SOLID236 or SOLID237:

Select the formulation option suitable for the specified element type and physics region. (For information on formulation options, see Characteristics and Settings for Physical Regions of a Model)

Define material properties. 2D Static Magnetic Analysis describes the material properties you can use and tells you how to specify them. For a static analysis, you must specify the relative permeability (defined by the MP command) or a B-H curve (defined by the TB command). Permanent magnetic orientation is defined in the element coordinate system, ESYS.

Build the model. (For instructions on building and meshing models, see the Modeling and Meshing Guide.) If you are using the GUI, select Main Menu> Preprocessor> Modeling.

Assign attributes to the volumes (that is, associate the element types, the material properties with the appropriate volumes).

Mesh the model, specifying brick or tetrahedral element shape.

Apply flux-parallel and flux-normal solid model boundary conditions to the boundaries.

For edge-based analyses, the label AZ (when set to zero) applies the flux-parallel boundary condition. No prescription is required to set flux-normal, because it is the natural boundary condition. In the rare case when the AZ = 0 condition is not general enough for flux-parallel conditions, you can prescribe constraints using individual D commands.

Apply source loading. See Characteristics and Settings for Physical Regions of a Model for information on source loading.

You can use constraint equations to define cyclic symmetry.

Enter the SOLUTION processor, using either of the following:

Choose the static analysis type.

To restart a previous analysis (for example, to specify additional loads), issue the command ANTYPE,STATIC,REST. In a static and transient nonlinear magnetic analysis, the default behavior is multiframe restart; for more information, see the RESCONTROL command.

Choose the solver you wish to use. The sparse solver is recommended. Select an equation solver using either of the following:

Choose load step options. (Alternative Analysis Options and Solution Methods of this manual describes these options.)

Solve the model.

When you use the edge-element formulation, by default Mechanical APDL gauges the problem domain over all selected elements and nodes. Gauging removes unneeded degrees of freedom by setting them to zero; this in turn enables the program to solve your analysis problem faster. You can control gauging using either of the following:

Gauging is required for electromagnetic analyses with elements using an edge formulation. Therefore, in most cases you should not turn automatic gauging off. If you do turn gauging off, you must perform manual gauging.

To initiate the two-step solution sequence, use the following:

To leave the SOLUTION processor, use one of the following:

Perform postprocessing and review the analysis results, as described in Reviewing Results from a Static Edge-Based Analysis.