A Magnetic Vector Potential Volume Integral Formulation for Nonlinear Magnetostatic Problems

Volume integral method (VIM) has been known as an interesting alternative to the finite-element method for electromagnetic field computation. Since only the active regions have to be meshed, VIM is very efficient for modeling of electromagnetic devices containing a predominated air volume. It is also adapted for multistatic studies with motion or optimization strategies. The aim of this paper is to propose a magnetic vector potential volume integral formulation in order to deal with the 3-D nonlinear magnetostatic problems. The main advantage of this formulation is that the convergence of nonlinear material solution can be easily reached after a few iterations without any relaxation. Moreover, the use of coarse meshes can lead to accurate results. Computed results for the TEAM Workshop problem 13 and for an actuator are reported.