A 2-D Robust FE-FV Mixed Method to Handle Strong Nonlinearities in Superconductors

A robust numerical method based on 2-D mixed finite-elements-finite volumes (FE-FV) allows the solution of diffusion problems in superconducting (SC) materials. The proposed approach handles the strong nonlinearity of the E(J) constitutive power law of high-temperature superconductors (HTS). The method is tested for a SC cylinder submitted to a sinusoidal transport current or to a transverse sinusoidal external field. The current density distributions as well as the AC losses are computed. Comparisons to a FE analyses that use the magnetic field as state variable show the validity of the proposed approach. It can be seen that the proposed method is very stable even for large n-values for which the FE method does not converge.