Inductive components in Power Electronics

Often the effort in Power Electronics is concentrated in the design of control and active power components. However inductors and transformers have to be designed as well and are often specific for converters. Usually the core is still selected within available shapes, but the winding type has to be designed on purpose. In today transformers and inductors for power Electronics, almost no design is possible any more without taking eddy current losses in account. This is true for transformers, but even more for inductors where the air gap results in an induction heating of wires close to it. Here a method is described to calculate the eddy current losses for inductors and transformers made with round wires. It fulfills the exact limit cases of known analytic solutions and is tuned by finite elements. The method is based on three field types which is extended to high frequencies taking horizontal and vertical filling factors and field type in account. It is compatible with the book [1] of the same author, but formulated in a different way. In inductors it helps to take a distance from the air gap. In transformers interleaving is a good solution.