A Comparison of Two Three-Dimensional Shell-Element Transient Electromagnetics Codes^*

* Research sponsored by the Office of Fusion Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, under contract DE-AC05-840R21400 with Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.

Abstract

Electromagnetic forces due to eddy currents strongly influence the design of components for the next generation of fusion devices. An effort has been made to benchmark two computer programs used to generate transient electromagnetic loads: SPARK and EddyCuFF. Two simple transient field problems were analyzed, both of which had been previously analyzed by the SPARK code with results recorded in the literature. A third problem that uses an ITER inboard blanket benchmark model was analyzed as well. This problem was driven with a self-consistent, distributed multifilament plasma model generated by an axisymmetric physics code. The benchmark problems showed good agreement between the two shell-element codes. Variations in calculated eddy currents of 1–3% have been found for similar, finely meshed models. A difference of 8% was found in induced current and 20% in force for a coarse mesh and complex, multifilament field driver. Because comparisons were made to results obtained from literature, model preparation and code execution times were not evaluated.

Notes

* Research sponsored by the Office of Fusion Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, under contract DE-AC05-840R21400 with Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.