Explore how engineers map magnetic fields and plasma flows with detailed models and practical code.
This book presents methods to simulate supersonic plasma moving along magnetic fields, using a circle-and-filament approach to approximate complex windings. You’ll see how a two‑dimensional model can generate space‑varying fields and streamline paths, aiding design and analysis of experiments.
The material explains a practical workflow: break a coil’s cross‑section into filaments, apply Biot–Savart to compute field components, and map the field using stream functions. It also discusses how to iteratively locate points of equal stream function and relocate streamlines when gaps occur, with guidance on data structures, numerical parameters, and how to handle realism versus symmetry assumptions. These sections emphasize the use of digital computation to predict field behavior in realistic coil geometries.
- How the filament model converts a winding into a solvable magnetic field problem
- How to compute B_r, B_z, and the stream function from a set of filaments
- How to map the field by stepping through axial and radial directions to trace streamlines
- Practical notes on handling gaps, symmetry assumptions, and numerical accuracy
Ideal for readers who want a clear, hands‑on view of magnetic fields in plasma experiments and the kinds of computational steps researchers use to predict behavior.