Coupled elements for problems involving movement [switched reluctance motor]

A novel technique for use in finite-element models of devices which move is proposed. Independence meshes are coupled together with a suitable interface, such as the air gap of a conventional electrical machine, using Lagrange multipliers. The proposed approach allows a finite-element mesh to move with respect to an adjacent mesh without any need for remeshing. At different positions, only the terms which couple the meshes together at the interface are altered. While only the problem of producing many different magnetostatic solutions or `snapshots´ of the rotor at different instants in time is addressed here, the authors expect that treating velocity-induced eddy currents in a time-transient situation should be possible by extending the same basic techniques