Critical state and magnetization loss in multifilamentary superconducting wire solved through the commercial finite element code ANSYS

The commercially available finite element code ANSYS has been adapted to solve the critical state of single strips and multifilamentary tapes. We studied a special algorithm which approaches the critical state by an iterative adjustment of the material resistivity. Then, we proved its validity by comparing the results obtained for a thin strip to the Brand theory for the transport current and magnetization cases. Also, the challenging calculation of the magnetization loss of a real multifilamentary BSCCO tape showed the usefulness of our method. Finally, we developed several methods to enhance the speed of convergence, making the proposed process quite competitive in the existing survey of ac losses simulations.