Impact of aluminum casing on high-frequency transformer leakage inductance and AC resistance

High-Frequency (HF) transformer is a central part of isolated HF power converters. Its parameters, in particular leakage inductance and losses, have a significant impact on the overall converter performances. With the increase of switching frequencies linked to the use of SiC and GaN based active devices, the control of the HF transformer parameters becomes essential. A HF transformer is usually designed without considering its surrounding. However, the latter can have a significant impact on the transformer's performance. In this paper, the effect of an aluminum casing surrounding the transformer is studied and quantified for two parameters: The transformer leakage inductance and the supplementary losses. The goal is to consider the casing effect in the early design stage of power converters.