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SIGEM: Electromagnetic and Electrostatic Applications

SIGEM was the longest survivor of the SIGs holding its final open meeting on 8 April 1987. Most of the software supported by SIGEM was developed at RAL. The three major packages, PE2D, TOSCA and BIM2D were for electromagnetic and electrostatic analysis in 2 and 3 dimensions. The programs were initially used to design superconducting magnets for a new accelerator at CERN. The Computing Applications Group (CAG) at RAL was formed to support these programmes developing methods for calculating electromagnetic fields. It was, therefore, uniquely placed to provide electromagnetic design software and support for university engineering users. adapting the packages to meet the requirements of university researchers:

Magnet Design
Software Description Machine
GFUN Integral operator 3D nonlinear magnetostatic package; some beam tracing possible. IBM
THESEUS Interactive preprocessor for GFUN Prime
BIM2D Boundary integral solver for linear Poisson equation in 2D. Prime + AP120B
PE2D Differential operator solver for non-linear Poisson equation in 2D. Can be used for eddy current calculations and allows some beam tracing. Prime
BIM3D 3D version of BIM2D IBM
TOSCA Differential operator solver for nonlinear Poisson equation in 3D. IBM

The programs were heavily used by universities and industry. Some of the university groups that used the software were:

University/Institute Project
Cardiff Transformer limitation
Bath High homogeneity study
Homopolar motor
Aberdeen Electrostatics (hazards)
Southampton Electrostatics (hazards)
Leeds Stepping motor
Southampton Magnetic levitation for wind tunnel
Bangor Magnetic levitation
Imperial College Machine problems
Southampton Machine slot study
Surrey Particle deflection magnet
Bristol Cathodic protection problem
Culham Lab/RAL In-house projects

Compeda, was licensed to sell the Rutherford Electromagnetics Software. When Compeda was sold to Prime Computers, they were not interested in the niche, technically demanding electromagnetic market. In consequence, Vector Fields Limited was formed, to take over the market that Compeda had helped to develop. Bill Trowbridge from RAL headed the company and John Simkin provided the technical skills. The modern versions of these packages were available through Vector Fields as OPERA-2D, OPERA-3D and CONCERTO.

Vector Fields was acquired by Cobham in 2005 which later became part of Dassault Systemes.

Some papers relevant to the history of magnetic design at RAL are:

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