Verification of magnetics design considering high power and high frequency effects

Abstract

Magnetics form an integral part of power electronics based energy conversion systems for power conditioning. However magnetics significantly add to the size and cost of these systems, unless designed for high frequency operations. High frequency designs suffer from higher losses resulting from core and conductors due to increased skin and proximity effects. At higher power levels the cross-sectional area required to handle power is larger, exacerbating the high frequency effects. State-of-the-art high power density converters require thermal-aware designs from reliability perspectives. The challenge lies in designing high frequency magnetics with minimal loss, such that the maximum temperature at higher power densities does not damage the insulation, conductors or the core of the magnetic component. This work represents a systematic thermal-aware design approach for high frequency inductors and transformers, wherein a new method of ac loss prediction for interleaved transformer windings is proposed. All the designs are experimentally verified showing good thermal performance.