The current phase of the BBEMG project focuses on the development of a software application to evaluate ELF fields near common ELF sources, in particular near overhead power lines and underground cables. Requests for such evaluations are numerous, both from the general public and from specialized engineering offices. While simple simulators based on analytic formulas or pre-computed datasets can provide rough estimates of ELF fields, they cannot match the accuracy of full electromagnetic field simulations in non-trivial cases (varying geometrical arrangement of the conductors and phases, shielding provided by conducting or magnetic materials, three-dimensional effects…), nor provide the same level of “intimacy” with the solution when parameters are modified.
The new software, based on the direct solution of Maxwell’s equations, is designed to provide an accurate evaluation of ELF electromagnetic fields near overhead power lines and underground cables, based on the advanced finite element and integral equation solvers developed by ACE over the last twenty years [1, 2].
[1] P. Dular, C. Geuzaine, F. Henrotte and W. Legros, A general environment for the treatment of discrete problems and its application to the finite element method, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 34(5), pp. 3395-3398, 1998.
[2] C. Geuzaine and J.-F. Remacle, Gmsh: a three-dimensional finite element mesh generator with built-in pre- and post-processing facilities, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 79(11), pp. 1309-1331, 2009.
