Finite Element Analysis-Aided Performance Improvement of Circular Coil Assemblies Applied in Electric Vehicle Inductive Chargers

Energy efficiency and leakage magnetic field (LMF) are two important issues in inductive chargers. In this work, the maximum achievable coil efficiency and the corresponding LMF strength are formulated as functions of system parameters, and figure of merits (FOM) are proposed for assessing the efficiency and LMF performance of the coil assemblies. The target application is electric vehicle inductive chargers where the LMF is suppressed via passive shielding. The impact of the coil assembly’s geometric parameters on both FOMs is examined through a combination of finite element analysis (FEA) simulation and magnetic circuit analysis, and measures to improve the FOMs are studied Optimization of an exemplary coil assembly within given dimensional limits is conducted and the performance improvement is verified by FEA simulation results.