Personal computer based educational tools for visualization of applied electroquasistatic and magnetoquasistatic phenomena

Abstract A first course in electromagnetic field analysis in an undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum typically involves the learning of analytic and numerical methods for attacking “electrostatic” and “magnetostatic” boundary value problems, incorporating notions such as “perfect conductors”, “dielectrics”, and “magnetic material”. Too often, the relevance of these modelling concepts to real physical systems and devices is only poorly appreciated. The computational and graphics capabilities of modern personal computers provide relatively new oppotunities to help students visualize the dynamic behaviors of electric and magnetic fields in the presence of conducting materialos, and their relevances to idealized modeling concepts. This paper describes personal computer based educational tools which animate the evolutions of electric and magnetic fields in models involving charge relaxation and magnetic diffusion phenomena, as well as programs which demonstrate numerical methods for field computations.