Power magnetics volume and weight reduction in aerospace power supply units

This paper discusses the potential impact on the reduction of volume and weight of power inductors allowed by the adoption of partial saturation operation. The problem of volume and weight is particularly important in the frame of More/All Electric Aircraft design. It is even more critical in applications like unmanned aircrafts and micro/nano satellites, where very tight specifications are imposed by missions' targets and reliability requirements. This paper presents the results regarding an experimental investigation realized on a dc-dc buck converter, showing that up to 65% volume reduction can be achieved in ferrite core power inductors operating in partial saturation.