An eddy current vector potential formulation for estimating hysteresis losses of superconductors with FEM

Many people these days employ only commercial finite element method (FEM) software when solving for the hysteresis losses of superconductors. Thus, the knowledge of a modeller is in the capability of using the black boxes of software efficiently. This has led to a relatively superficial examination of different formulations while the discussion stays mainly on the usage of the user interfaces of these programs. Also, if we stay only at the mercy of commercial software producers, we end up having less and less knowledge on the details of solvers. Then, it becomes more and more difficult to conceptually solve new kinds of problem. This may prevent us finding new kinds of method to solve old problems more efficiently, or finding a solution for a problem that was considered almost impossible earlier. In our earlier research, we presented the background of a co-tree gauged T–φ FEM solver for computing the hysteresis losses of superconductors. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of FEM and eddy current vector potential formulation in the same problem.