Measurement of magnetic losses by thermal method applied to power ferrites at high level of induction and frequency

Abstract

Classically, low frequency losses in soft magnetic materials and ferrites in particular are measured by flux metric method under sinusoidal waveform excitation voltage. However, in typical application of modern power electronics, the frequency currently exceeds 100 kHz. This feature is at the origin of a difficulty: the phase shift between current and voltage can be disturbed by current probe delay. Thus, the results can be affected by large errors. As a consequence, it becomes more and more important to develop alternative methods to measure losses in magnetic materials. It is proposed to use calorimetric method which is by principle free of the above mentioned problems. The experimental device is described in details and the results are reported for experiments conducted on a commercial Mn-Zn ferrite under sinusoidal waveform regime for frequencies varying from 10 to 200 kHz. Comparisons with flux metric measurement show that significant differences appear typically for Bf products above 5000 V/m(2) (50 kHzx100 mT).