Design of a Self-Shielded Transverse MRI Gradient Coil Taking into Account Track Width

MRI gradient coils are mainly designed using discrete wire techniques and continuous current density methods. The width of the coil tracks is not usually included upfront in the coil design optimization process. In this work, we use stream functions to compute the current density distribution on modular coil tracks which are consequently used to calculate resultant magnetic fields and coil resistances. This is then used to determine the number of turns plus locations for both primary and shielding coils using a constrained discrete wire optimization technique. Using this process, we achieved a design for a transverse self-shielded gradient coil. The stream functions for the final coil configuration are re-computed and used to calculate the final designed coil parameters including the coil’s inductance.