Re: Tesla simulation software project

["Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-jpl.nasa.gov> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

> 
> Turn to ground: yes; turn to immediate neighbour turns: yes;
> longer range turn to turn: no - this is a defect and I dont
> know how significant it is.

And tough to figure out exactly what it is.. The intermediate turn(s)
shield the end turns from each other, as far as capacitance goes, but
certainly the magnetic field is linked and significant.  This is probably
why folks use empirical formulae like Wheeler and Medhurst.  Those will get
you within 2-3% (or better) of actual measured values, and the value of a
finer approximation is dubious, given typical construction tolerances, etc.

I realize there is value in understanding the voltage and current
distributions, and as long as computational power available, it is a worthy
goal.  Essentially, what you are doing is duplicating what programs like
NEC (used for wire antennas) do.  Why not just use NEC? It calculates
electric fields, magnetic fields, etc. by numerically integrating all the
various equations to create a huge (sparse) matrix of the interelement
impedances and couplings.  You might need to do some work to enlarge the
array sizes (although I think there are "out of core" versions around), and
I think that one could take advantage of the axial symmetry of the typical
TC to reduce the computational load.

> 
> > Graphical presentation of secondary response to Any
> > given excitation waveform for each point (turn) of
> > winding in time and space should be also an output
> 
> Some time ago I put together a time domain simulation of
> 100 segments, but it was too much even for a 12 processor
> cluster. For now I would be very happy to successfully model
> the steady state AC input impedance upto and including the
> 5/4 overtone.

Essentially replacing your discrete time simulation with a Fourier series,
and ignoring any nonlinearities? I think that, excluding the spark gap and
streamers, the TC would be linear.  You could develop a linear model for
the TC, crunch the numbers, then use the resulting numbers in a nonlinear
model.


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