A comprehensive study of magnetic-amplifier design: II -Toroidal-core dimensional ratios as factor in magnetic-amplifier design

The application of a block-diagram method of analysis for magnetic amplifiers1 to practical design problems has produced a design technique which involves a minimum of cut and try while yielding near-optimum results. An indispensible part of this design method is a tabulation of the physical constants of the available toroidal magnetic cores. In the process of tabulating standard cores, it became clear to the authors that there was absolutely nothing systematic about the manner in which standard core sizes had evolved in the past. Clearly, with one exception,2 little attempt had been made to determine the optimum dimensional ratios or to eliminate overlaps and gaps in the power ratings of the cores. It would appear that magnetic amplifiers were destined to suffer the same fate as vacuum-tube amplifiers as a result of this random development of core sizes. Therefore, an investigation to determine the effect of toroidal-core dimensional ratios on magnetic-amplifier performance was undertaken. Subsequent to the initiation of this investigation the first proposal for standardizing toroidal-core sizes was published by the AIEE Committee on Magnetic Amplifiers.3