Electromagnetic modeling of coils made of twisted litz wire by combining finite element simulation and circuit laws

Litz wires consist of many individual, isolated conductor strands. Certain litz wires are fabricated by simply twisting the bundle of strands, hence a wire pitch is realized. In this paper, the ac resistance of coils made of such twisted litz wire are calculated by combining two-dimensional finite element simulation and circuit laws. In so doing, the inherently three-dimensional problem can be solved at much lower computational cost. Results are presented for the current distribution, and for the alternating current resistance of coils, validated against measured data.