Award

The proposed project will rectify the current bottleneck in the simulation of 3D magnetic fields around high-current pulsed power devices. In the existing software, fields in the air are approximated by an artificial magnetic diffusion equation, which is both computationally expensive and nonphysical. The proposed solution avoids any nonphysical quantities and relies on exact conditions for the quasi-static component of the field and on very accurate absorbing boundary conditions for the wave component, developed and validated by our consultant Prof. S. Tsynkov. Specific and verifiable advantages of our approach are: (i) High accuracy. The treatment of the unbounded outer region relies on a precise physical and analytical description of the exterior field and interface conditions. (ii) Dramatically reduced computational complexity: no grid is needed in the exterior region. (iii) Ease of coupling with the existing simulator, such as Mach3. (iv) Generality and efficiency for multiple simulations. Phase I includes innovative R&D of modeling 3D fields, with both quasi-static and wave effects of Maxwell’s equations included. Solutions to test problems will be calculated and compared with analytical and accurate numerical benchmarks to fully demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach. In Phase II, the innovative 3D algorithms will be implemented as software tools, coupled with the Air Force 3D-MHD codes and extended to problems with complex geometries of interest to Air Force .