CAD in electrical engineering

Designing an object is generally assimilated to creating it, which implies a process that goes from imagining the object to realizing it. In the technological field, the process of designing an industrial product can be defined as the set of actions from the expression of the need to the supply of technical data enabling its manufacture, or even its concrete realization.

Applied to the specificities of the electrical field, this generic definition obviously applies to the design of an electrical conversion device. It can be summarized as follows.

In response to a need, the first step is to formalize the requirement in the form of a technical specification, encompassing the objectives and overall constraints of the application. From these specifications, design in the common sense of the term begins, with the first action being to define the most appropriate structure to meet the need. This may be derived from previous similar devices, or represent an innovative topology. To date, this choice, which constitutes the "creative" part of the process, is made by the designer on the basis of his or her expertise in terms of knowledge of the device's field of application, but also in related fields relating to its environment of use. It should be noted that this choice is never totally definitive, and that the structure chosen may be called into question if, at the end of the design work, the results of the final prototype do not meet the specifications.

Once the structure has been chosen, the second step concerns its dimensioning in terms of the geometric quantities and materials to be used. This generally involves the use of analytical relationships and/or abacuses linking the dimensioning quantities to the targeted performances, or by calling on previous dimensionings of similar structures. Often based on simplifying assumptions, sometimes relatively strong, this phase results in a first draft of the device's dimensions.

This first prototype initiates the iterative process that will lead to the final prototype's geometric and electrical dimensions, as well as its constituent materials. The process is based on a "Performance evaluation" loop – Modification of dimensions/materials", usually combined with optimization procedures. In order to converge on these dimensions, evaluations are ideally carried out with the highest degree of precision, taking into account the operating environment. This requires the use of sophisticated multiphysics analysis approaches, which can be analytical, with less restrictive assumptions, or numerical. These can be analytical, with less restrictive assumptions, or numerical, and can be used to quantify the performance of a dimensioned prototype as close as possible to that of a real device....