A coupled electromagnetic-mechanical model for thin conductive plate deflection analysis

A thin conducting shell eddy current model and its coupling with a mechanical model for analyzing thin-plate elastic deflection due to the Laplace force are described. The eddy current model is based on the use of a boundary integral method in which the surface current density is introduced as a working variable. A triangular normal continuity edge element together with a spanning tree technique is used for numerical discretization. The mechanical model consists of the finite-element discretization of the thin-plate bending equation. The coupling between the eddy current model and the mechanical model is ensured by a time step-by-step procedure. A spherical shell eddy current problem is used to test the thin plate eddy current model. A TEAM Workshop benchmark problem (the beam deflection problem) is taken as a coupled eddy current-mechanical example.<>