Practical loss prediction in soft magnetic composite components

Abstract

Soft magnetic composites offer an alternative material to iron laminations for forming the active components of electrical machines. They have the advantages of being able to suppress eddy currents for three dimensional flux paths and can be pressed into complex components – facilitating the use of new and novel topologies. Most electrical machine designers, and the software they use, are familiar with working with laminations, where iron loss is described by a the two term Steinmetz equation. There is less experience in predicting iron loss in soft magnetic composite components, where a third loss term to describe bulk eddy currents is often employed. This paper describes a project which set out to use experimental loss data to improve the accuracy of loss prediction of complex soft magnetic composite components using industry standard finite element analysis software.