Inductor Design for Nonisolated Critical Soft Switching Converters Using Solid and Litz PCB and Wire Windings Leveraging Neural Network Model

Abstract

High frequency and high efficiency inductor design method is proposed for the application of critical soft switching with large current ripple to improve the power density and efficiency of electrified energy conversion systems. Firstly for the theoretical design section, the core/coil size, number of turns, airgap, inductance are optimized to minimize the inductor losses. Secondly for the structural design section of coil, a 3D routing method of litz PCB winding is developed to reduce the AC copper losses. The strand number, trace width, thickness and layout of litz PCB are analyzed in detail. Different types of coil, including solid/litz types of PCB/wire windings, are compared and analyzed based on the high frequency copper loss reduction and space utilization. For the structural design section of core, E and I cores are optimized to reduce the volume and core losses. Specifically, E-E, E-I, I-I and E-Air types of core structures are designed and compared considering the core loss, volume reduction and airgap limitation for the stack of turns. Ten derived prototypes are built to benchmark with the commercial inductors. Power losses, temperature rise and cost are reduced by a factor of 10, 2.5 and 3 with the proposed core and coil structures.