title: Computer-assisted design of surface coils used in magnetic resonance imaging. I. The calculation of the magnetic field.
abstract: For a number of reasons, it is desirable to fabricate coils which, for a known current, shall produce predetermined values of the magnetic field intensity at a number of points within a nuclear magnetic resonance imager. The calculation of the magnetic field intensity at a set of points involves the integration of the Biot-Savart equation for all components of the segments of conductor which make up the coil. This process in itself is a rather formidable task. When this process is parameterized in terms of coil diameter, coil spacing, etc. the problem is to determine the values of these parameters to match values of magnetic field intensities which are desired. The problem thereby increases in complexity to the point where, by ordinary methods, the problem becomes intractable. This note describes an algorithm and offers a computer subroutine to calculate magnetic fields for coils of arbitrary shape and complexity for fixed currents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Letcher
mesh_terms: D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D012984:Software