High Fidelity Modeling based High Power Density Three Phase Coupled Inductor Design for EV Applications

The shift towards electrified transportation has increased the importance of interleaved DC-DC converters with integrated magnetic components aiming for increased power density and system efficiency. A new structural inductor geometry, that retains the advantages of coupled inductors while ensuring high power density and tackling the problems of high airgap fringing flux losses, uneven flux distribution and three-phase current un-balancing associated with the conventional bulky inductors is proposed. Moreover, a new high-fidelity magnetic equivalent circuit (HFMEC) model was derived and applied for the design of this geometry which reduces the inaccuracies associated with the traditional magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) modelling. The model proved to be capable of evaluating the flux and current characteristics much quicker and with less computational cost as compared to the finite element analysis approach especially when complex geometries are involved. The proposed inductor geometry is modelled based on HFMEC, designed in Solidworks, simulated in ANSYS and MAXWELL 3D, fabricated and then implemented with a three-phase interleaved converter to evaluate the performance.