Novel optimization method for mobile magnetostatic shield and test applications

This article provides an optimized solution to the problem of passive shielding against static magnetic fields with any number of spherical shells. It is known, that the shielding factor of a layered structure increases in contrast to a single shell with the same overall thickness. For the reduction of weight and cost by given material parameters and available space the best system for the layer positions has to be found. Because classic magnetically shielded rooms are very heavy, this system will be used to develop a transportable Zero-Gauss-Chamber. To handle this problem, a new way was developed, in which for the first time the solution with regard to shielding and weight was optimized. Therefore, a solution for the most general case of spherical shells was chosen with an adapted boundary condition. This solution was expanded to an arbitrary number of layers and permeabilities. With this analytic solution a differential evolution algorithm is able to find the best partition of the shells. These optimized solutions are verified by numerical solutions made by the Finite Element Method (FEM). After that the solutions of different raw data are determined and investigated.