Application of FEM and COMSOL^® in Electrical Engineering and Power Systems

The speaker will present the benefits of using COMSOL Multiphysics^® in electrical engineering. The presentation is heavily based on work done with underground cables but also discusses other elements of power systems. The presented projects used the finite element method (FEM) to calculate electric fields, magnetic fields, heat transfer, and a combination of the above.

Use of the COMSOL Multiphysics^® Software to Minimize Physical Experiments: Determining Performance of Building Enclosures

Canada is moving toward more stringent regulations on buildings to reduce the energy consumption and reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in order to support the ambitious 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 percent by the federal government. Building envelopes are the main components of buildings that can be enhanced to increase the thermal performance of buildings. In this presentation, we will explain how we use COMSOL Multiphysics^® in different aspects of our work, including the following:

• Conducting the thermal analysis on wall assemblies to calculate their thermal performance by using the Heat Transfer Module
• Performing hygrothermal simulations of wall assemblies to understand the effect of actual and future climate loads
• Predicting the deterioration risk of wall components by conducting hygrothermal analysis using heat and moisture transfer in building material and mathematical features in COMSOL Multiphysics^®

The multiphysics capability of COMSOL Multiphysics^® gives us an option to model other physics associated with the wall assemblies and apply more realistic boundary conditions on the wall assembly in comparison to the dedicated tools for wall assemblies. However, computing time and convergence were found to be the two biggest problems when solving hygrothermal problems.