Loss measurement of magnetic components under real application conditions

Due to the increasing demand for highly efficient power electronic converters, a detailed design targeting each individual circuit component like magnetic components is getting more and more important. Several electric and calorimetric methods for the loss measurement of magnetic components are known from literature. Nevertheless, only the last approach can be used to properly perform measurements under real application conditions, i.e. when the magnetic component is driven with high frequency rectangular voltages. As a common drawback, calorimetric methods usually require long measurement periods. This paper will present a calorimetric measurement method to reduce the measurement time, thus enabling the realisation of large test series in order to obtain extended core loss data of magnetic materials. Furthermore, a method to extract core losses of magnetic materials with the help of calorimetric setups will be presented. A mathematical approach for the multidimensional fitting of measurement data will be shown in order to allow the modelling of the specific core losses regarding the multitude of influencing parameters (e.g. induction, frequency, DC bias, temperature, duty cycle). It will be shown that a core loss model based on data obtained by measurement under real application conditions can lead to superior accuracy.