If you are a research minded person and want to incorporate special features in your FE analysis, 'ELMER' is a very efficient open source software, developed by academicians in Finland under Govt. support. It has modules for Magneto-statics, Induction, Electrokinetics, Electrostatics, Static current conduction besides the modules on thermal and stress analysis. It has a good GUI, good documentation, very efficient solver and facility for developing and incorporating your own module with special features. Although I have used only elastic and thermal modules (and also developed my own interface), I believe that it will be quite useful in your area of interest. Following is an extract from their leaflet.

"Elmer is developed and maintained mainly at CSC - IT Center for Science (CSC). CSC is a non-profit governmental organization owned by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland. Elmer is mainly used as a collaborative tool in academic research. There are also a number of other developers who have or are contributing to Elmer development."

http://www.csc.fi/elmer.

It is a good one. I used it previously here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090780711000188

Now I am using Ansys HFSS. There are very good tutorials which did comparative studies between the two ( HFSS and CST).

From my experience, CST didn't have a PML boundary conditions for eigenmode solver options. This was the main reason that made me switch to HFSS.

That is a time domain electromagnetic field solver. This is one of the famous ones. HFSS and FEKO are some others.

I would recommend it for sure in solving EM problems. It can, however, be challenging to draw helixoidal structures such as a transformer. It is perhaps possible to find a macro that does it for you.

I do not know this software,I am sorry

Hi, there is a brilliant new one, which partly is even for free. Take a look on Gecko Magnetics from Gecko Research (initiated by ETH Zurich). Not visible on the Homepage but i know there is at least a beta available. Contact Andreas Müsing.

I can tell you it will become the basis software for inductive components and transformer design at least in Europe! We do an Investigation and discussed with several experts, who gaive tutorials on design of inductive components. There is also a special tools from Prof. Albach /FAU Erlangen but it is not public available :-(. This was the reason i even pushed and supported the development of a available new on.

So i can give the label supported by ECPE :-)

http://www.gecko-simulations.com/

Highly recommended for simulating electromagnetic waves and antennas.

Also it contains optimization techniques to enhance the performance of the designed elements to achieve a certain objective (ex. optimize the dimensions of an antenna to obtain wider operating bandwidth)

Theo only drawback might be in its high computational time.

We have very good results with validations of CST-MWS solver when using it for internal EM environment calculations in our airplanes within the HIRF-SE project "http://www.hirf-se.eu/hirf/".

still many of the researchers do not know the CST software. If we recommond the software to the universities and colleges, then i hope many people used this software in future.

Yes quicker simulation response as compared to HFSS.

Dr Pradeep kumar has given to update the users as and when time permits for the same i do agree for that. N V N A G E N D R A M

I recommend this simulator to you.

you can know more from examples on www.cst.com

thanks

With the exception that, for whatever reason, CST defines a system loss as a negative number, it's a well-known and useful piece of software.

Excellent software for designing and solving complex EM problems.Moreover its user interface is very simple and easy to learn.You can analyse wide varieties of EM problems line antenna designing , EMI/EMC , PCB designing ,Multiphysic and many more in single package

I will certainly recommend CST software. Most RF and antenna designer choose CST over any other software. Many research article are based on CST solvers. There are forums and support services available regionally. You can post your problems over there and get valuable comments or idea from support engineers.

If you are a research minded person and want to incorporate special features in your FE analysis, 'ELMER' is a very efficient open source software, developed by academicians in Finland under Govt. support. It has modules for Magneto-statics, Induction, Electrokinetics, Electrostatics, Static current conduction besides the modules on thermal and stress analysis. It has a good GUI, good documentation, very efficient solver and facility for developing and incorporating your own module with special features. Although I have used only elastic and thermal modules (and also developed my own interface), I believe that it will be quite useful in your area of interest. Following is an extract from their leaflet.

"Elmer is developed and maintained mainly at CSC - IT Center for Science (CSC). CSC is a non-profit governmental organization owned by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland. Elmer is mainly used as a collaborative tool in academic research. There are also a number of other developers who have or are contributing to Elmer development."

http://www.csc.fi/elmer.

Dr Gupta, does Elmer has GUI already?

CST MWS is a good option, as there are winding modules available for the transformer design. Many researchers are using it to detect the discharge and many other related problems.

The User-Interface of CST STUDIO SUITE is very easy to use and enables the fast construction of models. This model is then meshed and solution matrices set-up for use in the numerical solvers.

You can find the details here:

http://www.cst.com/Content/Applications/Article/Siemens+Energy+optimises+power+transformers+with+the+aid+of+3D+EM+Simulation

Thanks Dr. Shiuh_Hwa Shyu for taking interest in my answer.

I have Elmer 6.2 version, which has a GUI module. In fact now later version Elmer 7 is also available. All data can be supplied through GUI and it creates a solver input file (.sif), which is a text file and program reads it internally. Since I have been using only the elastic and heat flow modules, I checked further as to which other modules can be used through GUI. Navier-Stokes equation, helmholtz equation solver can also take input through GUI. For other solvers, such as electro magnetic etc. the solver input file (.sif) is to be created and then GUI can be used. There is elaborate Models manual, which provides instruction to create .sif file. Internally various .dll files are available for these solver and the GUI uses these to solve the problem. In fact one can develop ones own .dll file, which can be interfaced with the program and I am creating one such file for large strain elasto-plastic analysis and it has been successfully interfaced with it.

Dr. Gupta, Thanks a lot. I've use Elmer long time ago for a very short time. Quickly give it up for not having GUI but choose Solema_Meca+Code Aster. It's good to hear that since I feel Elmer is a very good software.

Thank you for the information about Elmer. It's a very interesting FEM software.

Hello;

I personally use Flux2D/3D from CEDRAT. This is an excellent software for electromagnetic electrostatic and thermal simulations, . You can get more information by going to their website: http://www.cedrat.com/