A novel folded litz ribbon cable for magnetic components

This paper describes the construction of a thin, flat litz ribbon cable suitable for use in magnetic components such as inductors and transformers where one requires reduced AC losses compared to conventional solid conductor ribbon conductors. This conductor has the potential for ease of manufacture and low cost compared to current solutions such as a braided litz cable. Since a 1-D analysis does not accurately model ribbon conductors, a simplified 2-D analysis is developed. Test inductors have been constructed using both a conventional solid copper ribbon cable and the new ribbon litz cable. Measured results are compared to both 1-D and 2-D analyses, and it is shown that the 2-D analysis provides a more accurate result. The experimental results indicate that the new folded litz cable has lower total losses over a relatively wide frequency range compared to the solid conductor ribbon cable of similar cross-sectional area.