Thermal Stability of a DC/DC Converter With Inductor in Partial Saturation

Inductors operated in quasi saturation in dc-dc converters allow reduction of the core size and realization costs; on the other hand, they imply an increase of dissipated power that can jeopardize the thermal stability of the converter. In this article, this issue is studied by a mathematical model able to represent both the inductor nonlinearity and its temperature dependence. The main losses, such as ohmic, skin effect and magnetic, are taken into account in the model. The inductor is characterized by a polynomial curve whose parameters are a function of the temperature. Finally, the whole converter is modeled and simulation results, obtained on a boost converter, are compared with experimental measurements showing that the thermal behavior is reproduced in detail.