CAE in electrical engineering: an industrial viewpoint

Computer aided engineering (CAE) is a very wide subject applicable to many industries and involving many disciplines. The ultimate aim of CAE must be to enable products, large or small, to be designed, tested and manufactured more quickly and efficiently and to have greater reliability in service than would be otherwise achieved by previous techniques. The authors describe the experience of one large electrical machine manufacturer in introducing an electromagnetic CAA into design areas to be used by designers. The CAA packages are used to analyse the various aspects of a trial design and the designer steers towards an 'optimum' by making changes which are re-analysed until a desired result is obtained.