IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO.
3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Numerical Considerations About Using
Finite-Element Methods to Compute
AC Losses in HTS
Frédéric Sirois, Senior Member, IEEE, and Francesco Grilli
Abstract—In this paper, we investigate the influence of various
numerical parameters on the precision and the speed of ac loss
computations in high-temperature superconductors using the fi-
nite-element method. The case considered here is an infinite slab
subjected to an external ac magnetic field. This problem can be
modeled by a 1-D partial differential equation (diffusion equation).
This relatively simple case allowed investigating the influence of
the various parameters in a reasonable time. The findings of this
work can be used as a starting point for optimizing the numerical
settings of more complex models. As the main results, it is shown
that choosing first-order elements for approximating the flux den-
sity (B ) is the most stable option, and that using high order adap-
tive time-stepping methods provides good accuracy and fast sim-
ulations. A new and simple self-check test for validating the com-
puted ac losses is also proposed. Finally, a detailed analysis about
the behavior of the numerical solution near flux/current fronts is
provided.
Index Terms—AC losses, finite-element methods (FEMs), high-
temperature superconductors (HTS), numerical analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
INITE-ELEMENT methods (FEMs) have become one of
F the most popular techniques for solving problems whose
physics is described by partial differential equations (PDEs).
One of the main advantages of the FEM is its ability to account
for complicated geometries, as the ones encountered in practical
applications. Another important advantage is its ability to easily
deal with nonlinear material properties, such as the resistivity of
high-temperature superconductors (HTS). For these reasons, it
has been very commonly adopted by the applied superconduc-
tivity community for ac loss computation in HTS wires and de-
vices (see, for example, [1]–[5]).
For the design of practical HTS devices, precise FEM models
are required: 3-D geometries, extremely thin conductors, pres-
ence of magnetic materials are just a few examples of factors
that can increase the complexity of the problem and, conse-
quently, the necessary computing resources and times. In order
to optimize the FEM models and to customize them to specific
needs, it is, therefore, very important to have a better knowledge
of the impact of the various FEM parameters on the simulations
and to quantify their influence. In fact, in spite of the relatively
Manuscript received February 20, 2008; revised June 5, 2008. Current version
published September 4, 2008. This work was supported by a start-up grant for
young professors (PIED) provided by École Polytechnique de Montéral. This
paper was recommended by Associate Editor S. Schwenterly.
The authors are with the École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, QC
H3C 3A7, Canada (e-mail: f.sirois@polymtl.ca; f.grilli@polymtl.ca).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2008.2001740
1051-8223/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1733
wide use of FEM models, the information on important simu-
lation parameters such as the utilized mesh, the approximating
functions, the numerical tolerance, etc., is often omitted; when
it is presented, not much is said about the reasons that led to a
particular choice of parameters. Therefore, it appears that it is
worth performing a more detailed investigation.
This paper provides insights about the influence of various
parameters on the ac loss values and their computation time in
the simple case of an HTS slab: the coarseness of the mesh, the
order of the approximating functions, the numerical tolerance,
the numerical quadrature precision order, and the time-stepping
algorithm. We chose an infinite slab in an applied field as a case
study, because its behavior can be described with a 1-D diffu-
sion PDE: it is, therefore, easier to keep control on the different
aspects influencing the solution and to run many parametric sim-
ulations in a reasonable time. In addition, the physics of an infi-
nite slab does not depend on geometry effects (e.g., the demag-
netizing effect in a thin strip), and the divergence-free condition
on is implicitly satisfied, allowing the use of conventional
nodal interpolation functions on the finite elements (no need for
edge elements). Despite these simplifications, the observations
made in this paper can be used as a solid starting point for further
investigations in higher dimensions and more complex geome-
tries.
The paper is structured as follows: Section II provides im-
portant information about the problem definition, considering
the underlying physics and the FEM environment chosen here;
Section III contains the results of our investigations, with the
subsections dedicated to the study of the various numerical pa-
rameters; Section IV presents a detailed analysis of observations
made in Section III and focuses on approximation errors near the
fronts, as it is the main cause of numerical difficulties; Section V
summarizes the work and indicates possible avenues for future
work.
II. FEM MODEL OF THE INFINITE SLAB
A. Problem Definition
Throughout this paper, we use as our base case a supercon-
ducting slab of width m, in the reference frame shown
in Fig. 1. This is because presently the most promising super-
conconducting tapes are represented by YBCO coated conduc-
tors, which are composed of superconducting films of a few mi-
crometers of thickness and a few millimeters of width. The con-
sidered slab corresponds to having the tape subjected to an ex-
ternal magnetic field parallel to its flat face, as would occur for
 1734
Fig. 1. Reference frame for the slab problem considered in this paper.
instance if used in a coil winding. The superconductor’s phys-
ical properties are described by a power-law relation between
the electric field and the current density
with V m, A m and . plained below.
The current and field profiles can be computed by Faraday’s
law
in which we insert and . Equation (2)
then reduces to the scalar diffusion equation when considering
the infinite slab geometry shown in Fig. 1, i.e.,
The quantity is known as the diffusion coefficient, and it
is nonlinear in this case since , as shown
in (1). In practice, also depends on , but we do not consider
it in this paper. From a numerical point of view, this dependence
does not add any difficulty.
For the purpose of our analysis, we considered only two
values for the amplitude of the applied magnetic field , i.e.,
1 and 5 mT, which correspond to two different levels of partial
penetration. Indeed, based on the critical state model (CSM)
and the above material parameters, the penetration field for
which the superconductor is fully penetrated is 6.28 mT (see
the Appendix). The field amplitudes are referred to the peak
value with respect to zero, i.e., . We
chose a frequency Hz for all cases simulated below.
B. Choice of an FEM Environment
Equations (1) and (3) have been implemented in the gen-
eral form PDE mode of the COMSOL Multiphysics commer-
cial FEM package [6]. We chose this software because of its
flexibility for accessing internal data and its wide use in the
scientific community. Most findings of this paper, however, do
not depend on the specific features of COMSOL, and should,
therefore, be representative of any FEM implementation, except
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Fig. 2. Typical steady-state behavior of B (t) and J (t) at two different posi-
tions in the slab, for B = 5 mT and f = 50 Hz. One complete period is
shown. The time transient solver must be able to intercept correctly the sudden
changes of slope of B (t), corresponding to abrupt jumps in J and .
(1)
for some issues related to the time transient solver used, as ex-
It is important to emphasize that with any FEM formula-
tion, (3) is rewritten in a weak form, which reduces the order
of the spatial derivative of by one. Details are provided in
Section III-C1. The weak form allows for using first-order ele-
ments to approximate , which provides substantial advan-
(2)
tages on computing speed, as will be shown later.
C. Choice of a Solver
Due to the nonlinearity of the problem considered, fast tech-
niques such as time harmonic solvers cannot be used, and one
must revert to a time transient solver. This choice is costly in
(3) terms of computation time, because it is necessary to solve for
at least two cycles, starting from null initial conditions, in order
to obtain the steady-state behavior of the ac losses. A wide va-
riety of time-stepping integration algorithms exist, and one must
choose a solver that is relevant to the class of problem involved,
which is, in the most general case, a differential algebraic equa-
tion (DAE) problem. Indeed, after the completion of the matrix
assembly process required by the FEM, we obtain a system of
ordinary differential equations in which the unknowns are called
the degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the problem. In our case, the
DOFs are the values of the flux density at each computation
node of the discretized problem, and are noted . In addition,
if any constraints are imposed, e.g., a transport current, addi-
tional equations of algebraic type must be satisfied. The whole
set of equations (differential plus algebraic) forms the final DAE
system to be solved.
In addition to solving the DAE system, the solver must be
able to account for the nonlinear nature of and the wide
range of values it may take. Indeed, as , which
results in a zero diffusion coefficient (i.e., the flux diffusion is
stopped at points where ). On the other hand, as gets
close to , the resistivity grows rapidly, and the diffusion be-
comes quasi-instantaneous. This results in a front-type diffu-
sion of and , where the sign of changes abruptly at the
front (see Fig. 2). Corresponding to this current reversal is a
singular change of slope in the profile, which must be well
 SIROIS AND GRILLI: NUMERICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT USING FEMs TO COMPUTE AC LOSSES IN HTS
Fig. 3. Loss value as a function of the number of DOFs for elements of different orders, when the applied field is (a) 5 mT and (b) 1 mT.
approximated numerically in order to avoid large inaccuracies
in , which could induce local errors on . If
too large, these errors may alter the diffusion coefficient in a
way that makes the solve diverge. Front-like behaviors are very
unusual in electromagnetics, and this might explain why most
electromagnetic FEM commercial codes fail to solve efficiently
even very simple HTS problems.
The COMSOL Multiphysics package uses a time transient
solver based on the DASPK algorithm [6], [7] to solve time-de-
pendent PDE problems. In brief, the DASPK algorithm uses
variable-order variable-step-size backward differentiation
formulas and Krylov methods for matrix preconditioning (if
needed). In other words, it is an implicit adaptive time-stepping
technique, well suited to solve stiff nonlinear DAE systems,
in which case one Newton iteration is performed to linearize
the system before solving the current time step. Therefore, all
simulation times and convergence properties presented in the
forthcoming sections are closely related to performances of the
DASPK algorithm. The latter has proved to be very efficient
as compared to other approaches, such as using user-specified
time steps (generally as input to Euler-type methods) coupled
with Newton–Raphson iterations [8], so it seems a judicious
choice of solver for our purposes.
III. RESULTS
This section presents the most relevant results of the para-
metric simulations realized during this investigation. The main
objective of this section is to highlight the impact of each nu-
merical parameter on ac loss accuracy and computation time.
All simulations were performed on an IBM Workstation with
2-GHz clock speed and 4 GB of RAM memory.
A. Number of Elements in Mesh and Order of Approximating
Functions
We started our analysis by considering a different number of
finite elements and different orders for the approximating func-
tions. Unless specified otherwise, conventional Lagrange ele-
ments were used throughout the paper. The results are shown
in Fig. 3 for the two applied field amplitudes chosen. Results
are shown as a function of the number of DOFs in the problem,
which, for a given number of elements, depends on the order of
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1735
the approximating functions: the higher the order, the higher the
number of DOFs. For the case of a 1-D slab, we have
(4)
It can be observed that the asymptotical convergence is faster
for an applied field of 5 mT than for 1 mT. This is because
a field of 5 mT penetrates deeper inside the slab, so there are
more elements (i.e., more DOFs) that are effectively utilized
than at smaller field (1 mT), for which the penetration is lim-
ited to a small region near the edges. It can also be noticed
that, for the same number of DOFs, the approximating func-
tions of order two and three do not provide better results than the
first order. With fourth-order and higher approximating func-
tions, the accuracy is recovered. This phenomenon is explained
in Section IV.
The horizontal line shown in both figures represents the the-
oretical value of the losses, as computed with the CSM [9] (see
Appendix). We remark that it is always lower than that provided
by FEM calculation. This is due to the power law charac-
teristic used in our FEM model, which presents a smooth tran-
sition from the superconducting to the normal state, described
by the finite index in (1), as opposed to the CSM, which
corresponds to [10]. More details are provided in the
Appendix.
B. Numerical Tolerance
The solver tolerance is another important parameter of the nu-
merical solution process, since it allows determining, at a given
time instant, if the solution is sufficiently accurate to pursue with
the next time step or if the current time step needs to be refined.
In the case of the DASPK algorithm, the time-step is accepted
if [6]
(5)
where is the absolute tolerance ( ) on the DOF, is
the relative tolerance ( ), and is the solver’s estimate of
the local error on DOF . The absolute and relative tolerances
 1736 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Fig. 4. Influence of the absolute tolerance on the ac loss value (top) and com-
putation times (bottom) for an applied field of 5 mT and different numbers of
first-order Lagrange elements.
do not need to be used both, as long as the denominator of (5)
remains greater than zero at all times.
Fig. 4 shows the value of the ac losses for an applied field
of 5 mT and different number of elements (50, 100, and 200),
for values of ranging from to . First-order
Lagrange elements were used in all cases. As a first observa-
tion, we remark that a larger number of elements requires a more
stringent criterion (and obviously implies longer simulation
times). This is a general behavior observed in numerical prob-
lems when the mesh gets finer. We also observe that the value
of the losses is stable over many orders of magnitude of , cases. This choice is based on the results of Fig. 3(a), where
then suddenly explodes when it reaches some threshold value,
for instance in the case of 50 elements. This value of
could be considered as being the optimal one, i.e., it pro-
vides accurate results with the smallest computation time (see
Fig. 4). For this particular case, the simulation times between
and varies by a factor of 4 to 6.
Although in this simple test case the simulation times remain
of a few minutes at most, such a factor becomes very important
when the geometries are more complicated (2-D) and computa-
tion times are much longer.
It has to be remembered that the state variable for this problem
is the magnetic induction , which takes values of 5 mT or
less inside the superconductor. Therefore, a threshold value of
for means that, at first sight, a precision of more than
one part on 5000 is necessary to obtain
accurate ac loss results. Indeed, replacing the absolute tolerance
criteria by a relative tolerance of 0.02% works fine, and above
this value, the ac loss value starts to diverge in a similar way as
shown in Fig. 4. However, further investigations showed that the
minimum value that ensures accurate ac loss computation is
independent of the maximum applied field, which suggests that
the solver is very sensitive to the smallest values of the solution
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Fig. 5. Influence of the absolute tolerance on the ac loss value (top) and com-
putation times (bottom) for an applied field of 5 mT and different orders of
Lagrange elements. About 50 DOFs were used in all cases.
(i.e., near zero field conditions), which corresponds to regions
near the internal front. Indeed, applied fields of 5, 10, 20,
50, and 100 mT all require to converge. In view
of these results, a relative tolerance criteria is of little interest,
and is basically not required for HTS problems, at least when
working with the DASPK algorithm for time integration.
Another interesting observation consists in the minimum
required for solver stability as the order of the Lagrange ele-
ments is increased. Fig. 5 illustrates the results obtained with
Lagrange elements of order 1 to 4, with 50 DOFs used in all
the ac loss values are all very similar with 50 DOFs. The most
striking result is that first-order elements converge with a higher
than higher order ones, i.e., - for first
order versus - for higher order. However, this
has little effect on computation time. This result suggests that el-
ements of order 1 behave differently than higher order elements,
which is indeed the case and will be explained in Section IV.
Finally, it is very instructive to look at the time evolution
of the power dissipation curve for different values of the abso-
lute tolerance, e.g., see Fig. 6. For sufficiently low values of the
tolerance, the power loss curve is smooth [see Fig. 6(a)]; then
sharp spikes start to appear gradually, modifying the loss value
[Fig. 6(b) and (c)]; finally, the curve is totally dominated by
the spikes and the loss value explodes [Fig. 6(d)]. These spikes
cannot be of physical nature: as a proof, they do not even present
any periodicity. The presence of spikes can be put in direct re-
lation with inaccurate computation of the current density front,
as it will be explained in Section IV.
The curve is certainly the simplest way to check the
validity of a solution, particularly in complex models, where the
user cannot afford to explore all flux profiles visually. If spikes
appear in the curve, then the tolerance needs to be refined.
 SIROIS AND GRILLI: NUMERICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT USING FEMs TO COMPUTE AC LOSSES IN HTS 1737

integrals appearing in the FEM weak form equations (prepro-

cessing), and 2) the integrals used to compute the ac losses of a
given solution (postprocessing).
1) Weak Form Integrals: In this case, any significant error
can have an important impact on the solution accuracy since
erroneous coefficient matrices will necessarily produce outputs
that are inaccurate to some extent. This adds to the intrinsic and
unavoidable approximation error resulting from the piecewise
approximation of the solution over the finite elements.
In order to determine the minimum quadrature precision
order required, one must take a closer look at the weak form
expression of (3), after application of the Green formula, but
before any linearization or discretization of the time derivative

(6)

where is a test function whose purpose is to weight the ap-

proximation error over the slab domain, defined between
. Note the the second term disappears because at
the boundary since we impose as a Dirichlet
boundary condition. More details about this procedure can be
found in any finite-element book or in COMSOL’s documenta-
tion [6].
Using the Galerkin method to discretize the above equation,
becomes successively equal to the basis functions ,
, etc. (generally Lagrange polynomials, but could be any
other basis whose sum equals 1), and our state variable
is expressed as a linear combination of the , i.e.,
, where is a DOF of the problem. After sub-
stituting these expressions into the discretized version of (6), we
end up with two kinds of base integrals, namely

Fig. 6. Instantaneous power dissipation in the slab (in the second cycle) for an
(7)
applied field of 5 mT and different values of the absolute tolerance.
(8)
The authors thus recommend to always perform this self-check
test. Note that these integrals are expressed in terms of the reference
element, after a change of variable from to . Their evaluation
C. Quadrature Integration serves to form a linear system of equations in the so-called FEM
An important feature of the FEM is the use of fast numerical assembly process.
integration techniques for converting the integrals that enter in The case of is straightforward and allows finding a lower
the weak form equations to numerical values that enters in the bound for the quadrature precision order: if the maximum order
coefficient matrices that form the final linear system of equa- of the is , then the product is at most of order , and
tions to be solved. The most widely used of these integration a quadrature precision order is sufficient to obtain an
techniques is Gaussian quadrature, which reduces the integral exact result for .
to a weighted sum over discrete points of the integrand. The The case of is more delicate. Following the above nota-
basic principle to remember is that a quadrature with points tion, the product can be at most of order . However,
provides an exact solution for a polynomial integrand of order the resistivity function defined in (1) is a highly non-
, which is also called the quadrature precision linear function of and may increase the effective order of the
order. In general, the solution on each element can be well ap- integrand. The best approach here seems to revert to the physical
proximated with a relatively low order polynomial basis, and meaning of the integrand, i.e., corresponds to the elec-
Gaussian quadrature provides a fast and sufficiently accurate es- tric field , and we know that the electric field behaves quite
timation of the weak form integrals. smoothly over the domain of a superconductor, despite the non-
When the problem is nonlinear, as here, it is worth having linear resistivity [11]. Fig. 7 illustrates the typical shape of the
a closer look at this approximation and making sure that con- electric field at different time instants in a cycle. Despite the high
ventional or default rules generally applied are still valid. In -value of 25 used for this simulation, is restricted to a more
our case, this must be done for two different cases, i.e., 1) the or less parabolic behavior over the domain, thus a second-order

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 1738
Fig. 7. Electric field at four different time instants in the slab, for an applied
field of 5 mT, f = 50 Hz and T = 1=f . The field profile is rather smooth
everywhere, except at some singular points corresponding to current fronts.
polynomial on each element is enough to accurately approxi-
mate it. Therefore, is also a rather smooth function, and
the same quadrature order as used for evaluating
is sufficient for . The singular points corresponding to cur-
rent fronts are the only ones that are likely to cause problems.
Details are provided in Section IV.
The rule is the default one in most FEM software, so
generally the user does not have to care too much about this pa-
rameter. Using a higher quadrature order than the minimum is
not bad, although it will result in slightly longer solution times
(typically a few percent longer per degree added to the quadra-
ture order).
Note that although this conclusion is rather simple for the
cartesian case, it does not hold true for the axisymmetric case,
where is a minimum to obtain accurate results
(because of the presence of a term in the integrand).
2) Integrals for Computing AC Losses: This case is very
different from the above, since the quadrature integration per-
formed at this stage is part of a postprocessing operation, which
supposes a solution was computed previously. The ac losses
in a slab of width are defined as the time averaged power
density W m , i.e.,
In the above equation, (instantaneous losses)
is an expression that must be evaluated by Gaussian quadrature.
The time integration also requires numerical inte-
gration techniques such as the Simpson or trapezoidal rules, but
as long as there are a sufficient number of output points in the
curve (typically 50–100 points per cycle), this part of the
computation is not prone to errors. Note that the DASPK solver
requires the output times to be specified in advance, so it returns
them as they are reached in the solving process, but the points
really solved for are determined by the solver itself, depending
on its algorithm.
The effect of the quadrature precision order chosen for com-
puting may be surprising, as shown in Fig. 8. Indeed, in
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Fig. 8. Instantaneous power dissipation in the 10-m slab, for an applied field
of 5 mT, f = 50 Hz, mesh of 75 elements, second-order Lagrange polynomials,
2
atol = 2:5 10 , and 200 output points per cycle, for two different quadrature
precision order.
this particular case, a quadrature of order 2 provides a nicer re-
sult than a quadrature of order 8, which presents many power
spikes in the curve, and provide an overestimation of the ac
losses (the correct value for the ac losses is W m ,
as approximately found with the second-order quadrature).
The explanation to this behavior lies in a too coarse toler-
ance used in the time transient solver, as already explained in
Section III-B. This can be corrected by reducing . The im-
pact on solution time will only be very slight, and the
curves obtained with any quadrature precision order will be-
come identical. Therefore, using a small quadrature order can
affect the validity of the curve as a self-check test for
correct tolerance threshold, and the authors suggest that a high
quadrature order (at least 6) should always be used to obtain a
curve that is representative of the numerical quality of the
solution. Another way to completely avoid this problem is to al-
ways use first-order Lagrange polynomials to approximate ,
as explained in Section IV.
D. Summary of Results
(9)
The results presented in the current section can be summa-
rized as follows below. It must be kept in mind that these results
are based on the use of a DASPK-based time stepping solver.
1) Results Related to AC Loss Accuracy:
• Relatively few DOFs can provide very accurate ac loss
computation (in 1-D, 10–20 DOFs are enough if they are
all located in nonzero field regions).
• Lagrange elements of second- and third-order requires at
least twice as many DOFs than first- and fourth-order ele-
ments to achieve the same level of accuracy.
• The maximum value of absolute tolerance: 1) decreases as
the number of elements increases; 2) is independent of the
applied field; 3) is almost independent of the polynomial
order of the elements (except for first-order Lagrange ele-
ments, for which it can be chosen larger).
 SIROIS AND GRILLI: NUMERICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT USING FEMs TO COMPUTE AC LOSSES IN HTS
• The curve provides a simple way to self-check a so-
lution, as long as the quadrature precision order is chosen
sufficiently high (6 or more): the presence of spikes in the
curve indicates a too large value
• A quadrature precision order set to twice the maximum
order of the Lagrange polynomials is sufficient to ensure
accuracy, e.g., order 4 for elements of order 2.
2) Results Related to Computation Time:
• The simulation time: 1) increases with the number of
DOFs; 2) decreases as is increased; and 3) is almost
independent of the order of elements (for a given number
of DOFs).
• Using an absolute tolerance close the the convergence
threshold is critical to minimize the computation time: a
few preliminary runs are required to find the correct
value for a given problem.
• With a DASPK-based solver, the use of a relative tolerance
( ) generally does not help to speed up the solution, and
even slows it down, so it is better not using it.
• There is no need for using a residual resistivity with a
DASPK-based solver; there is even a risk to introduce sig-
nificant errors in the solution.
IV. DETAILED ANALYSIS
All problems and modeling difficulties observed in the pre-
vious section are related to a single common cause: the numer-
ical approximation near the fronts. In this section, we investi-
gate in detail this specific issue, in order to provide explanations
and identify avenues to avoid most numerical difficulties.
A. Numerical Approximation of , , and Near Fronts
Let us consider the same slab as above ( m,
A m , and ), discretized with 50 elements of La-
grange type. We apply a 5-mT 50-Hz sinusoidal field at the
walls, and we solve this problem for different orders of polyno-
mials ranging from 1 to 4, with an absolute tolerance of , looking for the presence of spikes in the
which ensures no spikes are present in the curve used for
self-checking. The results obtained under these conditions are
shown in Fig. 9 ( , , and profiles).
The first striking point about these results is that the use of
first-order elements to approximate is the only choice that
leads to a piecewise constant by element approximation for .
Indeed, at a given time instant, , with
being first-order polynomials, therefore
is necessarily an expression that is constant by
element (staircase like). As a consequence, profiles are
very stable (no overshoot), despite the fact that the discontinuity
exhibited is not what we expect from the physics. The same
holds true for the local dissipation since
and is constant by element.
The solutions obtained with polynomials of orders 2 to 4 pro-
vide a smoother approximation, but the price to pay for it is pos-
sible overshoots in the profiles, and corresponding spikes
in the curve. Since we used a very small tolerance for
solving these problem, this overshoot is clearly NOT a numer-
ical error, but is really the best possible approximation of this
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1739
problem in the FEM sense. In other words, there are NO means
to get rid of overshoots that come out naturally from a FEM so-
lution when using high order elements, even with a tiny
value. However, a too large can amplify the overshoots,
which will generate spikes in the curve.
Another remarkable thing in Fig. 9 is the fact that is
well approximated for all element orders (differences are barely
perceptible), whereas the curves are significantly dif-
ferent. For a given number of elements, we clearly see that the
front becomes better defined as the element order increases (but
we use proportionally more DOFs). In addition, the overshoot is
generally better controlled with higher order polynomials. This
is explained by the possibility to model sharper bends in the
profiles with the highest order terms, and it is also the reason
why, for the same number of DOFs, we do observe less error in
the loss calculation for elements with order 4 than orders 2 and
3, as shown in Fig. 3(a).
B. Numerical Impact of Overshoots
Beside aesthetic considerations, the presence of overshoots
is certainly the main problem we can encounter in simulating
superconductors. Indeed, a slight overshoot results in a large
local increase in resistivity and power dissipation
, as can be seen in Fig. 9.
In the first case, if one of the quadrature points falls on the
overshoot, the corresponding integral will bias one or more
coefficients in the global matrix, which will in turn lead the
solver in a wrong direction for the next time step, and it may
eventually diverge. In terms of physical quantities, this high
local value of increases the diffusion coefficient (thus the dif-
fusion speed), which results in an excessive diffusion inside the
slab, and possible numerical oscillations when the solver tries
to find a consistent solution during the following time steps.
In the second case, the local spikes in the curve can
alter the value of the ac losses computed, although this error is
generally limited to less than 1%, as long as the solver did not
produce numerical integration errors. This can be verified by
curve (none in this
case), which does not mean that there are no spikes in the
curve (the space integration smears out the small local spikes).
An important consequence of these local spikes could be artifi-
cial hot spots if the problem were coupled with a thermal solver.
Indeed, such an unphysical hot spot could easily start to propa-
gate itself to the surrounding material and trigger a quench of the
sample under simulation, whereas there is physically no reason
for this quench to occur. Thus, great care should be exerted to
avoid this situation in magneto-thermal simulations. However,
in the case of a purely electromagnetic simulation, this is not a
problem.
C. Can Hermite Elements Help to Avoid Overshoots?
In order to avoid overshoots completely, an appealing idea
is to use elements that possess a continuous space derivative
between elements, corresponding to a continuous in our case.
These kinds of elements indeed exist, and are called Hermite
elements. However, in practice, Hermite elements, which are of
order 3 or more, are costly in terms of computation time, and
 1740 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008

Fig. 9. Partial results of numerical simulations for an applied field of 5 mT, f = 50 Hz, on the walls of an HTS slab of dimensions 2a = 10 m, with J = 10
and n = 25, and discretized in 50 elements of Lagrange type. The absolute tolerance used was 10 , and the output times plotted here are 20, 20.6, 21.2, and
21.8 ms (begining of second cycle simulated). Note that most commercial packages often perform smoothing operations on these output data, which may mask the
real numerical approximation. Although nice to the eye, such features should always be disabled before performing any objective analysis.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 SIROIS AND GRILLI: NUMERICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT USING FEMs TO COMPUTE AC LOSSES IN HTS
Fig. 10. Comparison between solutions obtained with 50 elements of order 1 and 2000 elements of order 1 (reference curve), for the same slab problem as defined
in Fig. 9.
despite their continuity, they introduce more numerical oscilla-
tions in the and solution than Lagrange elements. This is ex-
plained by the restricted set of polynomials that possess this
continuity, which inevitably reduces the quality of the approxi-
mation. Therefore, imposing continuity on does not seem to
be a good avenue.
D. Summary of Analysis: The Simpler the Better
Since overshoots are problematic and unavoidable for poly-
nomial approximating functions of order 2 and more, why not
use only first-order approximation? First-order elements prevent
overshoots, and in addition and are constant by element,
thus a simple two points quadrature is sufficient (even if ex-
hibit a field dependence), which speeds up the matrix assembly
process. Therefore, it seems to be the best solution among all
those explored here.
The main question that remains to clarify is: how accurate
are the ac losses computed with the stair-like shape?
The answer to this question is easily found by superimposing
a reference curve (obtained with a very fine mesh of 2000 ele-
ments) with the solution of Fig. 9. We clearly see that each of
the discrete steps lies above the reference curve for about half of
its length, and below the curve for the other half, which means
the integral ends up being correct on av-
erage, as seen in Fig. 10.
The computed ac losses, whose values are given in Fig. 10(b),
prove this assertion for the case considered here. This confirms
that first-order Lagrange polynomials are simpler, faster, more
stable, and as accurate as higher order approximating functions,
and therefore can be used without any major concern other that
the aesthetic of the solution (in which case it is possible to use
smoothing algorithms if really needed).
V. CONCLUSION
This paper deepened the understanding of the impact of var-
ious numerical parameters in ac loss calculation in supercon-
ductors using the FEM. Only the 1-D case was considered to
allow fast parametric tests and reduce the number of variants.
The FEM was used to discretize the problem in the space do-
main, using the flux density as the state variable, whereas
an adaptive time step solver based on the DASPK algorithm was
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1741
used for the temporal integration. This model has been imple-
mented in and solved with the COMSOL Multiphysics commer-
cial package.
In order to obtain accurate ac loss results at optimal speed, it
was found that the absolute tolerance had to be adjusted care-
fully, and that no relative tolerance should be used. Any problem
with a solution can be rapidly detected by looking for numerical
spikes in the curve (instantaneous power loss). Finally, be-
cause first-order elements prevent overshoots near the flux/cur-
rent fronts, using them was found to be the fastest and more
stable modeling approach, despite the impact on the aesthetic
of the solution.
Future work should consider defining a rule to automatically
set the absolute tolerance near its optimal value, as well as de-
vising an automated validity test for the solution. But before
that, the same analysis should be carried out for the 2-D case,
with edge elements as approximating functions, since they are
the most widely used in formulations in which the state variable
is or . Tests with both a transport current or an applied field
should also be performed.
APPENDIX
EFFECT OF POWER LAW EXPONENT ON AC LOSS
COMPUTATION
The power law exponent plays an important role on the
numerical value of the ac losses, which is often underestimated.
The impact of is tightly coupled with the absolute size of the
sample and the value of , but for the purpose of this paper, we
restrict ourselves to the case of the slab of width m
and a fixed value of A m (at electric field criteria of
V m).
Fig. 11 illustrates how the loss values vary with and for
an applied field of 5 mT. It can be seen that losses computed
with high values of approach the CSM value [9] (ac losses per
cycle , where mT
and is the applied field), although even provide ac
losses about 10% higher than the CSM at 50 Hz. Loss values
below are not significant as the field fully penetrates the
slab and, therefore, the CSM formula used above is not valid
anymore. For a given , the difference in the losses comes from
 1742 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 18, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2008
Fig. 11. Loss value as a function of the index n and frequency f , for an applied
magnetic field of 5 mT at the walls of a slab of width 2a = 10 m.
Fig. 12. Examples of the B profiles inside the slab at f = 50 Hz, for three
different values of n and for the CSM. The applied field is 5-mT peak.
the different degrees of penetration and different slope of the
field profiles inside the slab for different values of , as shown
in Fig. 12. For a given , the losses get closer to the CSM as
increases, since the flux has less time to relax inside the sample
during one cycle.
Therefore, as long as the field does not fully penetrate the
sample, the CSM always forms a lower bound for ac losses com-
puted with a power law characteristic.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Amemiya, S. Murasawa, N. Banno, and K. Miyamoto, “Numerical
modelings of superconducting wires for AC loss calculations,” Physica
C, vol. 310, pp. 16–29, 1998.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nac de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Downloaded on March 22,2023 at 10:38:58 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
[2] F. Grilli, S. Stavrev, Y. L. Floch, M. Costa-Bouzo, E. Vinot, I. Klutsch,
G. Meunier, P. Tixador, and B. Dutoit, “Finite-element method mod-
eling of superconducors: From 2-D to 3-D,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Super-
cond., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 17–25, Mar. 2005.
[3] R. Brambilla, F. Grilli, and L. Martini, “Development of an edge-el-
ement model for AC loss computation of high-temperature supercon-
ductors,” Supercond. Sci. Technol., vol. 20, pp. 16–24, 2007.
[4] Z. Hong, A. Campbell, and T. Coombs, “Numerical solution of critical
state in superconductivity by finite element software,” Supercond. Sci.
Technol., vol. 19, pp. 1246–1252, 2006.
[5] J. Paasi, J. Lehtonen, M. Lahtinen, and L. Kettunen, “Computation of
ac losses in high-temperature superconductors,” Physica C, vol. 310,
pp. 62–66, 1998.
[6] Finite-Element Software Package Comsol Multiphysics [Online].
Available: http://www.comsol.com
[7] P. Brown, A. Hindmarsh, and L. Petzold, “Using Krylov methods in
the solution of large-scale differential-algebraic systems,” SIAM J. Sci.
Comput., vol. 15, pp. 1467–1488, 1994.
[8] F. Sirois, M. Dione, F. Roy, F. Grilli, and B. Dutoit, “Evaluation of two
commercial finite element packages for calculating AC losses in 2-d
high temperature superconducting strips,” in Proc. 8th Eur. Conf. Ap-
plied Superconductivity (EUCAS 2007), J. Phys. Conf. Series 97 (2008)
012030.
[9] M. N. Wilson, Superconducting Magnets. London, U.K.: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1983.
[10] J. Rhyner, “Magnetic properties and ac-losses of superconductors with
power law current-voltage characteristics,” Physica C, vol. 212, pp.
292–300, 1993.
[11] E. H. Brandt, “Electric field in superconductors with rectangular cross
section,” Phys. Rev. B, vol. 52, no. 21, pp. 15442–15457, 1995.
Frédéric Sirois (S’96–M’05–SM’07) received
the B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from
Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada,
in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree from École Polytech-
nique de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, in 2003.
From 1998 to 2002, he was affiliated as a Ph.D.
scholar with Hydro-Québec’s Research Institute
(IREQ). From 2003 to 2005, he was a Research
Engineer at IREQ. In 2005, he joined École Poly-
technique de Montréal as an Assistant Professor.
His main research interests include modeling of
electromagnetic and superconducting devices, integration of superconducting
equipment in power systems, and planning of power systems.
Francesco Grilli received the M.S. degree in physics
from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1998, and the
Ph.D. degree from the École Polytechnique Fédérale
de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2004. His
Ph.D. dissertation was titled “Numerical Modeling
of High Temperature Superconducting Tapes and
Cable.”
From October 1999 to August 2000, he was a
Software Engineer with Marconi Communications,
Genoa, Italy. From September 2000 to July 2004, he
was a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Labo-
ratory of Nonlinear Systems (LANOS) of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne. From August 2004 to August 2007, he was a postdoctoral research
associate at the Superconductivity Technology Center of the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow
at École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada. His main research
interests are the 2-D and 3-D modeling of high-Tc superconductors and the dc
and ac characterization of their properties.