Theses

To improve the simulation of particle dynamics, we couple two types of solvers using a scattered field formulation to solve Maxwell's wave equations in the time domain. Herein, the total electric field E is decomposed into a prescribed incident field E_i and a scattered field E_s. The two are coupled by the PEC-boundary condition which the sum of the two fields (but not each individually) have to fulfill.

The aim of this thesis is to generalize the concept of a scattered field approach to non-perfectly conducting materials at the boundary. When using a single field formulation, one can use surface impedance boundary conditions (SIBC). We want to apply this concept also to the scattered field formulation and implement it into our current simulation code.

The student will gain a broad background in the modeling workflow: How to start from physical equations, how to transfer them to a discrete representation and how to finally implement an effective realization in an existing code framework.

Prerequisites: Strong interest in numerical methods for electromagnetic field computations (PDEs, FIT) and their application. Interest in working with C++.

Feel free to pass by Jonas Christ for more details.

Pyrit is a Finite Element Method Based numerical field simulation software written in Python to solve coupled systems of partial differential equations. Currently, the modular solver covers static and quasistatic electric and magnetic fields, stationary current problems, stationary, and transient heat conduction problems. The different modules can be coupled to analyze multiphysical engineering applications, such as e.g. foil windings, cable joints, and surge arresters. The software is under continuous development. Thus, developing further parts and maintaining existing parts of Pyrit are the main tasks.

In the context of the green energy transition, efficient long-distance power transmission becomes increasingly important. The losses of extruded high voltage direct current (HVDC) systems are lower than those of high voltage alternating current systems and, hence, more and more HVDC systems are being deployed.

Cable joints connect cable segments, which are limited in length due to transport limitations. Cable joints are known to be the weakest part of HVDC systems as they are exposed to high internal field stresses. These stresses can be reduced by inserting a layer of so called field grading material (FGM), that features a strongly nonlinear conductivity. The FGM balances the electric field stress by becoming highly conductive in areas with high field strengths and, thus, shifting the voltage drop to less stressed areas. The aim of this work is to optimize the nonlinear conductivity of a 320kV HVDC cable joint specimen during steady state operation.

At DESY the currently available electron gun is based on a normal conductive copper cavity operated in pulsed mode. It will be replaced by a superconducting variant to enable also CW operation. The required electromagnetic field in the cavity is then excited by a dedicated input-coupler system originating from the well-known TESLA input power coupler. Additional HOM couplers are not considered in the current design phase but may be added if required. Due to the asymmetric coupling of the resonator fields to the external sources the extracted electron beam will observe a parasitic coupler kick which has to be minimized.

The scientific question is whether a surrogate (low-fidelity) machine model can be employed to accelerate a computationally expensive (high-fidelity) finite-element machine simulation. The research hypothesis is that a well-constructed surrogate may perform better than a pure algebraic surrogate for standard machine types. It is expected that an established machine model can be trusted in a region which is substantially larger than a standard quadratic surrogate of the high-fidelity model. In order to preserve accuracy, the surrogate model will be adapted algebraically such that it locally has at least a linear consistency with the finite-elmeent model. This will be achieved by additive or multiplication defect corrections. In particular, an additive correction with quasi-second-order consistency will be set up using Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno updates for the Hessian of the high- and low-fidelity models.

At DESY in Hamburg the particle accelerator PETRA will be equipped with new rf resonators for the acceleration of the particles. For this reason the electromagnetic properties of these cavities have to be investigated. The 3D electric and magnetic fields can be simulated with numeric tools. And these fields need to be evaluated by post processing to calculate the accelerating and deflecting effects on the charged particle beam.