Flexibility and economics of implementation of the finite element and difference techniques in nonlinear magnetic fields of power devices

This paper presents a comparison between the finite element and difference methods applied to two dimensional nonlinear magnetic field problems. The comparison is based on the determination of the magnetic field distribution in a shell-type single phase transformer with substantial magnetic core saturation. The comparison between the two discretization schemes is based on an equal number of finite element and finite difference domains. The finite element mesh is superimposed on the finite difference grid, to assure an equitable basis of comparison. Aspects of flexibility of implementation and economics (computer execution time and storage requirements) for the two techniques are compared. In addition, the degree of agreement between numerical results of the two methods and corresponding experimental test data is given.