Example16 Anisotropic Conductor

General

An anisotropic conductor is placed in an isotropic conductor.
A certain voltage is applied across the model.
The distributions of the electric field and the current density are solved.
Unless specified in the list below, the default conditions will be applied.

Analysis Space

Item	Settings
Analysis Space	3D
Model unit	mm

Analysis Conditions

Select “Static analysis” as the potential is static.

Select “conductor” as the material type.

Item	Settings
Solvers	Electric Field Analysis [Coulomb]
Analysis Type	Static analysis
Material Type	Conductor
Options	N/A

Model

The anisotropic conductor has the highest conductivity in the x direction originally.
The highest-conductivity direction is changed when the anisotropic conductor is rotated during the modeling.

Body Attributes and Materials

Body Number/Type	Body Attribute Name	Material Name
0/Solid	Metal	008_Cu *
1/Solid	Anisotropic_Metal	Anisotropic_Cond

* Available from the Material DB

The conductivity of the anisotropic conductor is set as follows.

Material Name

Electric Conductivity

Anisotropic_Cond

Anisotropy: Select “Anisotropic”.

Set [Conductivity Matrix]*

5.977	–	–
0.0	0.0001	–
0.0	0.0	0.0001

X10^7

[S/m]

* This is not the actual material’s property.

Boundary conditions

Boundary Condition Name/Topology	Tab	Boundary Condition Type	Settings
V0/Face	Electric	Electric wall	Voltage specified, 0[V]
V1/Face	Electric	Electric wall	Voltage specified, 1[V]

Results

The current density vectors are shown below.

The electric field vectors are shown below.

The directions of the current density and the electric field are different in the anisotropic conductor.

In this exercise, the electric field is applied in the direction of (X, Y, Z)=(1, 1, 0).
However, the direction of the anisotropy can be changed in a different way through the setting of the body attribute (“direction” tab) in Euler angles.
You may set Euler angle (0, 0, 45) on the Direction tab of the body attribute.

See other Electric Analysis examples.