User's Guide
How to do specific tasks, and the methods behind the settings. For a single setting, see the Interface Reference Manual.
Simulate your own transformer or inductor
From your own CAD file to losses, temperatures and inductances. Each step links the page that covers it.
- Geometry: prepare the CAD file (one solid per conductor, small details removed), import it as STEP or IGES and give each part its Geometry Type: Importing CAD Geometries.
- Domain and simulation: choose the Domain Type and the Electromagnetics and Heat Transfer types: Setup.
- Materials: take the core, winding and insulation materials from the library or add your own: Materials.
- Wire model: set the Wire Type of each coil group: Coil.
- Assembly: set the air domain, click Assemble Geometry and check the type and material of every body: Assembly.
- Windings and terminals: assign the coil groups to windings and check the terminals and the current direction: ElMag, Setting terminals & Current Direction.
- Excitation: add sources and loads, then set frequency, amplitude and waveform: Circuits, Waveform.
- Cooling: set the boundary conditions of the outer faces, with heat transfer on: Heat.
- Mesh: click Compute Mesh, then refine windings and gaps until the results stop changing: Mesh.
- Run: click Simulation Setup, then Run Simulation: Solve.
- Results: read the losses, the component values and the hotspot temperature: Results.
Decisions for your own component
- Losses or inductance: losses and temperatures come from a Harmonic or Transient run with heat transfer; inductance over frequency or current comes from an Inductance run, which always has heat transfer off. Set them up as two separate runs: Inductance (frequency and excitation sweeps).
- Symmetric or Full: Symmetric solves half the model and converges faster, but needs the symmetry plane at z = 0, the flux parallel to it and at least two terminals of every winding on it; otherwise use Full: Setup.
- Wire model: Massive (solid) resolves skin and proximity effects in every turn and, when the skin depth is smaller than the conductor thickness, needs boundary layers on the Mesh tab or, in Inductance runs only, Impedance boundary (no winding losses); Stranded & Litz takes the AC losses from Configure Wire, for litz and for many turns drawn as one block; Foil and Flat wire for foil and rectangular wire: Coil.
Worked example with an imported winding: Planar Inductor, a PCB winding imported as IGES into an E core; Full, Massive (solid), Inductance sweep at 5 and 50 kHz.
Task and method pages
| Topic | Page | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Importing CAD Geometries | Prepare and import STEP or IGES geometry |
| Model | Setting terminals & Current Direction | Set where current enters and leaves each coil |
| Model | Circuits (User's Guide) | Connect windings through an external circuit with R, L and C elements |
| Model | Without circuits | Excite windings directly when solid multi-turn windings do not converge at high frequency |
| Excitation | Transient Waveforms & Simulations | Import a waveform from a circuit simulator and run a transient simulation |
| Excitation | Inductance (frequency and excitation sweeps) | Compute inductance, reactance, Q factor and losses over frequency, current or voltage |
| Physics | Homogenization of Litz and Stranded Windings | Compute AC losses of Litz and stranded windings without meshing each strand |
| Physics | Core Properties and Models | Choose B-H curve, permeability and core-loss model (Steinmetz, GSE, iGSE) |
| Physics | Heat Transfer modeling | Set up conduction, heat transfer coefficients and radiation |
| Results | Parasitic Extraction | Read resistance, leakage and magnetizing inductance and winding capacitances |
| Results | Coupling Factor | Compute the coupling factor of two windings |