Efficient technique for 3-D finite element analysis of skin effect in current-carrying conductors

In this paper, an efficient method for the three-dimensional (3-D) computation of steady-state skin effect problems in current-carrying conductors is presented. It is assumed that the total current is composed of the source current and eddy current, and source current density is proportional to the precalculated electric field intensity. The additional variable is the proportional coefficient which is constant for one conductor. To calculate the magnetic vector potential and the proportional coefficient, the iterative procedure is employed. The proposed method requires much less computational resource and can be easily implemented in the existing 3-D finite element code with slight modification. The method is validated by comparison to known solutions of slot-embedded model and applied to the analysis of current distribution in the GIS conductors.