There are many materials which posses a certain degree of intelligence allowing them to adjust their behavior on the basis of their history. This property is sometimes referred to as hysteresis. Design of devices and systems is often complicated by the presence of hysteresis because no adequate analytical or computer tools are available to predict various physical parameters and properties in this case. It is the objective of this project to develop computational methods for modeling of electromagnetic systems with hysteresis. The research will focus on the following two problems. One is the development and selection of mathematical models of hysteresis which can accurately represent constitutive laws. The other is the development of computational methods which can be used to determine electromagnetic fields on the basis of Maxwell's equations and constitutive laws. Computational methods for electromagnetic field problems with hysteresis have been addressed previously in the context of static magnetic fields only. It is the goal here to improve the existing methods of field computation in media with hysteresis and extend them to problems involving electric fields and eddy currents. To this end, a new, more general hysteresis model will be used. Finite element techniques are also suggested for these computations because powerful tools for modeling of different geometries in the context of the finite element method are readily available.
