Four different electrostatic source types are available for the electrostatic field solver.
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(Fixed or Floating) |
Potentials can be defined on perfect electric conductors (PEC solids). If a perfect electric conductor (PEC) unit has to be maintained at a specific potential, then specify the potential type to be Fixed. Alternatively, the PEC unit can be made floating (Floating potential). A floating unit has a constant but unknown potential which will vary depending on what charges are nearby. Note, that defining a floating potential is equivalent to assign a zero charge to a PEC unit.
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(Fixed and Floating) |
Boundary Potentials can be defined via the boundary conditions dialog. In order to assign a potential to a boundary, the corresponding boundary condition in the "Boundaries" tab must be set to "normal" or "electric".
It is possible to choose between zero-potentials (default), predefined potentials (fixed) or constant but unknown potentials (floating). |
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Charges defined on PEC solids can be used to prescribes the total charge of the perfect conductor. In particular, a PEC charge is a generalization of a floating potential allowing arbitrary total charge values. During the computation the potential is adjusted so that the total dielectric flux equals the given charge value. |
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Homogeneous volume or surface charge distributions
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A homogeneous charge distribution can be defined on a non-PEC solid or sheet. It is possible to specify each charge to be a surface or a volume charge. Moreover the charge value can be defined either as a total value, meaning that a constant value in C (Coulomb) is specified, or as a density, meaning that the specified value refers to the charge density in the entire solid in C/m³ (for volume charges) or to the charge distribution on the surface of the solid in C/m² (for surface charges). |
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Note: When no source has been assigned to an unconnected PEC solid, it will usually be considered as a solid with a zero-potential. To change this default behavior enter the Specials dialog in the Electrostatic Solver Parameter dialog box and switch the default treatment of PEC solids from Grounded to Floating.
See also
