SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS USING HIGH ORDER DERIVATIVES

Abstract

In this article, we present a method of sensitivity analysis based on high order derivatives and Taylor expansion. The principle is to find a polynomial approximation of the finite element solution in terms of the sensitivity parameters. We present this method on two dimensional linear magnetostatic and linear magnetodynamic problems. The sensitivity parameters can be either physical parameters or geometric ones. Once the high order derivatives are found, the Taylor expansion allows evaluations for a new set of parameters. The time needed to obtain a new solution is negligible compared to a standard finite element re-analysis. This implies a dramatic change in the use of computational tools. Moreover, the availability of fast evaluations allows a wide use of optimization algorithms. [Vol. 12, No. 2 (1997), Special Issue on Numerical Field Calculations in Electrical Engineering, pp 20-25]