Temperature Dependency Modeling, Simulation and Experimental Validations of DC Superimposition Characteristics for Gapped-Ferrite Inductor Including Saturation Region

To realize the early development of power converters, research on the front-loading design in which the efficiency, control characteristics, converter size, thermal management, and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) are carefully considered before making a prototype, has been attracting. To carefully design and predict these design factors before prototyping, making accurate models of active/passive components operated on simulation of the multi-physical domain such as thermal, magnetic, and electrical is indispensable. This is because these characteristics of active/passive components on power converters are affected by each other. In this background, this paper proposes a nonlinear relative permeability modeling method with a temperature dependency of gapped-ferrite cores. The temperature dependency of the effective relative permeability of the gapped-ferrite core is investigated under core temperature within - 50 °C -+ 150 °C. As features of the proposed modeling method and simulation model, a simple mathematical equation and lookup tables are utilized for simple implementation to the simulator. The validity of the proposed modeling method is confirmed by both simulation and experimental tests under operating conditions including the magnetic saturation regions.