Study on a spoon shape magnetic core contactless transformer for the ICPT system in railway transportation

Contactless transformer is a key part of the inductive contactless power transfer (ICPT) system. In this paper, a contactless transformer is proposed with spoon shape magnetic cores. With 3D finite element methods (FEM), this paper calculates coupling coefficients of the transformer at different inner lateral side distances and end bending angles and extension lengths of the magnetic cores, obtains the magnetic field distribution and optimizes magnetic cores arrangement. The results show that the contactless transformer with spoon shape cores can improve coupling performance and power transmission efficiency of the ICPT system.