Dynamic iron loss measurement method for an AC filter inductor on a PWM inverter

An iron loss measurement method for ac filter inductors used on PWM inverters is proposed in this paper. A distinctive feature of this method is that the iron loss of the ac filter inductor can be individually measured in each switching period, thereby allowing the loss distribution during one cycle of output frequency to be observed easily. The measurement system is composed of a PWM generator, an inverter, a voltage and a current sensor, a high-speed sampling digital recorder, and a computer with loss calculation software specially developed by the authors. The iron losses caused by both the high-frequency switching ripple current and the low-frequency output current are measured, and are displayed graphically on a monitor.