A New Accurate FEM Based Optimization Method for Birdcage Coil Design at High Field Strength

Necip Gurler¹, Fatih Suleyman Hafalir¹, Omer Faruk Oran¹, Yusuf Ziya Ider¹

An accurate method and a software tool for the capacitance calculation of low-pass and high-pass birdcage coils using a Finite Element Method (FEM) based optimization algorithm is presented. For the verification of the algorithm, 8-leg low-pass and high-pass birdcage coils are constructed and capacitance values used in the experiments are compared with the capacitance values calculated using our algorithm and also with the capacitance values obtained by the widely used software BirdcageBuilder which is based on a lumped element circuit model. Results show that our algorithm is more accurate than the lumped element circuit models especially at higher frequencies.