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Welcome to Issue 4 of EM Desktop, the newsletter on electromagnetic equipment design topics from Cobham Technical Services: Vector Fields Software.

In this issue

Same products, same people.
New look

Welcome to issue 4 of EM Desktop from Cobham Technical Services - the new corporate identity of Vector Fields. We have been part of the Cobham group for four years, and in line with our parent organisation's evolution to a single unified global identity, we are changing our brand image to Cobham Technical Services - with the capability identifier ‘Vector Fields Software’. The products and the people behind the Vector Fields Software electromagnetic design tools - Opera and Concerto - remain exactly as before. More

Simulink interface supports complex design problems

The new version of Opera (v13 - see below) includes a Simulink interface, providing an easy and intuitive way to carry out dynamic multi-physics simulations of complex systems. The Opera model is represented by a Simulink block, which exchanges data with the Opera solver at each time step using COM (ActiveX) technology. The interface feature is available for all transient Opera solvers, both in 2D and 3D. An application note on this new software is available here.

Opera v13 is about to be released!

We are about to release v13 of the Opera electromagnetic design tool. Here are a few of the key additions:

  • New hysteresis solver - believed to be unique, the solver provides designers of motors, generators and other magnetic devices with an accurate means of accounting for losses and predicting performance changes due to hysteresis effects, in for example the specialty electrical steels that are increasingly used to enhance efficiency. A presentation about the development of this solver was given at our user conference, which was included in the last newsletter. You can get a copy of the hysteresis solver by upgrading to Opera v13 with the demagnetisation solver.
  • More CAD import formats - we have added CATIA, Pro/ENGINEER and STEP to the range of CAD file formats that can be accepted as inputs to the modeller.
  • New electronic/electric circuit components - Opera 3D now includes switch and diode components to help define electrical circuits.
  • Display of iso surfaces - the 3D post processor now supports the display of iso surfaces, to visualise points of constant value.
  • Logical arithmetic support - the modeller and post processor now support logical arithmetic, making it simpler to build conditional expressions in scripts.
  • Plus Simulink compatibility - as described above.

We are also introducing software based licenses with this release which will allow us to provide more licence options, including a soft-key (although dongles will still be available).

An electromagnetic 'BOGOF' - it's a really good deal!

We are offering a fantastic BOGOF (buy one get one free) deal on training at the moment. Book a place on any of our 2009 Opera or Concerto training courses before the end of May 2009, and you can bring another person from your organisation along for free (as long as space is available - our training suite has a finite limit). You can see the courses here.

Top tips: improving Opera and Concerto performance

by Eddie Moor, Support Manager

  • Sketching models. From calls to the help desk it seems many of you still don’t use the time-saving sketching feature introduced with v12 of Opera. Instead of building models using primitives, you can create blocks, cylinders and many other objects in a few seconds by simple sketching actions. In many cases, this can save time and is well worth exploring.
  • Keep an eye on mesh quality. A uniform mesh will greatly speed simulations when using Opera 3D analysis. The nearer it is to the underlying tetrahedral shape used in the solver, the faster the execution. Did you know there's a figure of merit guide to mesh 'quality' provided in the Console? The closer to 1 (perfect shape) this is, the faster things run. If you see a low figure, a few simple changes can often speed things up significantly - maybe the low figure of merit is associated with a part of the model that is not very relevant to the main thrust of your design where mesh parameters can be relaxed, or maybe manually re-meshing a segment will speed things up.

For more helpful tips why not download the new version of the 'ASK' Additional Support Knowledgebase? It contains hundreds of detailed answers provided by the Vector Fields Software help desk, in an indexed and searchable form.

Berlin in May: new technology at CWIEME

Cobham Technical Services will be at this year's Coil Winding, Insulation and Electrical Manufacturing Exhibition - CWIEME - in Berlin from May 5th to 7th. You will be able to see version 13 of Opera, including the new hysteresis solver, plus the popular application-specific tool for motor and generator design - Opera Electrical Machines Environment - with its high level templates to speed design.

We are also exhibiting at various other shows throughout the year - click for more details.

Have you seen...?

We've had some significant press coverage recently that may be of interest to you. Here are a few links: