A Gapless Ferromagnetic Core Reactor - Magnetic Equivalent Circuit and Inductance

A magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) model for a novel Gapless Ferromagnetic Core (GFC) Reactor is presented with reluctances and magnetomotive sources according to the geometrical description of the device. The improved accuracy of the equivalent circuit is obtained using more inclusive leakage flux paths for the reluctances while striking balance with complexity. The primary objective of the paper is to introduce the concept of the gapless reactor and express its equivalent inductance using MEC. The inductance is obtained after an iterative solution of the nonlinear MEC and validated against results obtained from a three-dimensional finite element model. This comparison confirms the validity of the presented MEC model within a small tolerance.