CHAPTER 30 30-1 744, DESIGN OF MAGNETIC COMPONENTS Magnetic components, inductors and transformers, are an indispensible part of most power electronic converters. However, they are not commercially available in a wide Tange of properties but are usually designed and constructed for the particular application. In this situation the power electronic equipment designer/user must be knowledgeable about the design and fabrication of these components in order to specify and use them properly in a given application. In this chapter the basic aspects of the design of inductors and transformers are presented with emphasis on high-frequency (tens of kHz to MHz) power electronic applications. The design procedures show that the size and rating of an inductor or transformer are dominated by the electrical loss in the component. MAGNETIC MATERIALS AND CORES The review of magnetic circuits and devices in Chapter 3 assumed that ideal materials were used to make the inductors and transformers. In particular it was assumed that loss-free magnetic materials were used for the cores. These assumptions are not satisfied in real materials, and the loss that occurs in them has a significant effect on the design and fabrication of inductors and transformers. Any inductor or transformer design procedure must take these losses into account, and the designer must have a good understanding of the material properties. This section discusses these material properties. Two broad classes of materials are used for magnetic cores for inductors and transformers. One class of materials are comprised of alloys principally of iron and small amounts of other elements including chrome and silicon. These alloys have large electrical conduc- tivity compared with ferrites and large values of saturation flux density, near 1.8 tesla (T). Two types of loss are found in iron alloy materials, hysteresis loss and eddy current loss. Iron alloy core materials (often termed magnetic steels) are usually used only in low- frequency (2 kHz or less for transformers) applications because of eddy current loss. Iron alloy magnetic materials must be laminated to reduce eddy current loss even at modest frequencies such as 60 Hz. Cores are also made from powdered iron and powdered iron alloys. Powdered iron cores consist of small (less than a skin depth in their largest dimension even at moderately high frequencies) iron particles electrically isolated from each other and thus have significantly greater resistivity than laminated cores. Thus30-1 MAGNETIC MATERIALS AND CORES 745 powered iron cores have lower eddy current loss than laminated cores and can be used to higher frequencies. Various amorphous alloys of iron and other transition metals such as cobalt and nickel in combination with boron, silicon, and other glass-forming elements also offer interest- ing properties for inductor and transformer applications. These alloys, often as a group labeled by the trade name METGLAS, are roughly 70~80 atomic percent iron and other transition metal elements and approximately 20 atomic percent boron and other glass- forming elements. Alloy compositions containing cobalt such as METGLAS alloy 2705M. appear particularly suitable for high-frequency applications. This alloy has a saturation induction of 0.75 T at room temperature and 0.65 T at 150°C, which is more than a factor of two larger than the saturation induction of ferrites at this elevated temperature. The electrical resistivity of METGLAS alloys is typically somewhat larger than the most magnetic steels. The METGLAS alloys are formed by rapid quenching techniques so that they have no crystalline order in their structure. The rapid quenching fabrication tech- niques also mean that the alloys are fabricated as long ribbons of material which are quite thin, typically 10-50 microns in thickness. This small thickness, together with larger resistivities than most magnetic steels, make amorphous alloys obvious candidate core materials for high frequency applications. The second broad class of materials used for cores are ferrites. Ferrite materials are basically oxide mixtures of iron and other magnetic elements. They have quite large electrical resistivity but rather low saturation flux densities, typically about 0.3 T. Ferrites have only hysteresis loss. No significant eddy current loss occurs because of the high electrical resistivity. Ferrites are the material of choice for cores that operate at high frequencies (greater than 10 kHz) because of the low eddy current loss. 30-1-2 HYSTERESIS LOSS All magnetic cores exhibit some degree of hysteresis in their B—H characteristic. A typical B—H characteristic (B—H loop) is shown in Fig. 3-20a. The details of the physical mechanisms that cause hysteresis are beyond the scope of this discussion but can be found in the literature. The area inside the B~H loop represents work done on the material by the applied field. The work (energy) is dissipated in the material, and the heat caused by the dissipation raises the temperature of the material. The hysteresis loss increases in all core materials increases with increases in ac flux density, B,., and operating or switching frequency, f. The general form of the loss per unit volume (sometimes termed the specific loss), Pm,sp» is Prrsp = Kf"(Bac)* (30-1) where k, a, and d are constants that vary from one material to another. This equation applies over a limited range of frequency and flux density with the range of validity being dependent on the specific material. The flux density B,, in Eq. 30-1 is the peak value of the ac waveform as shown in Fig. 30-1a if the flux density waveform has no time average. ‘When the flux density waveform has a time-average B,,, as shown in Fig. 30-1, then the appropriate value to use in Eq. 30-1 is B,, = B — B,yg Core manufacturers provide detailed information about core loss usually in the form of graphs of specific 1o8S Pym,¢p aS a function of flux density B,, with frequency as a parameter. An example of such a graph is shown in Fig. 30-2a for the ferrite material 3F3, and Eq. 30-1 for this material is Pmsp = 1.5 X 107° f!? (B,.)?5 (30-2a) with P,, sp in mW/cm? when fis in kHz and B,, is in mT. In selected METGLAS alloys, the core losses may be comparable to ferrites, in spite of the fact that the amorphous alloys746 CHAPTER 30 DESIGN OF MAGNETIC COMPONENTS Bu By fa) (b) Figure 30-1 Magnetic flux density waveforms having (a) no time average and (6) with a time average. Magnetic power loss density, Py, AW m3 mW cm 103 in kHz | 400 10 102 10 1 10 102 mt 100 1000 Gs Peak ac flux density, Bae Figure 30-2. Core losses versus magnetic flux density for 3F3 ferrite cores.