complex polygon impedance calculating

[IVX]

I wondered whether exist kind of software for complex PCB polygon impedance calculating? Or just Rdc value between some pair of pads, that included to the copper pour. Anybody saw such tool ever? I guess it's would be useful thing for high current SMPS.

 

[jcx]

I have sucessfully used:
http://www.quickfield.com/free_soft.htm

does simple conductivity as well as eddy current/self inductance effects for 2 D or axisymetric meshes


also freeware - with correspondingly bad interfaces that I've looked into some of but haven't used:

http://www.fastfieldsolvers.com/links.htm

http://www.openscience.org/links/index.php?section=13

 

[IVX]

Oh thanks jcx,
actually I lost any hope to find something, and start to programming my own simple solution with gerber or even bitmap PCB polygon input. At moment I evaluate the QF5.5, during half of hour manual reading, I find this stuff pretty complex yet. How you made import PCB polygon to QF?

 

[jcx]

I've only hand entered fairly simple shapes, the free QuickField demo only allows ~ 200 points in the mesh so very complicated shapes aren't practical

I've certainly thought that a Gerber to polygon/mesh generator for one of these solvers would be real handy but I haven't ran across one yet

I think the FastHenry or Elmer app would be more useful for a "2.5 D" app like PCB trace/gnd analysis with multiple layers of trace - it may be possible to patch together several QuickField analysis

 

[walkura]

Maybe its not exactly what you need (or a bit over the top) for your purposes .
But personaly i like the ansoft software for magnetics .
Just look with google for ansoft hfss and in case of inductors & transformers pexpert .

I hope this is usefull for you .