Novel and Simple Calorimetric Methods for Quantifying Losses in Magnetic Core and GaN Transistor in a High Frequency Boost Converter

Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering ›› 2016, Vol. 2 ›› Issue (2): 68-75.

Novel and Simple Calorimetric Methods for Quantifying Losses in Magnetic Core and GaN Transistor in a High Frequency Boost Converter

Wenbo Wang^*, Frans Pansier, Sjoerd de Haan, J. A. Ferreira

DCE&S, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

Online:2016-12-25 Published:2019-11-01
Contact: E-mail:Wenbo.Wang@tudelft.nl.
About author:Wenbo Wang (S’13) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and automation, and the M.Sc. degree in power electronics and electrical drives from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical machines from Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. His current research interests include characterization and application of wide bandgap semiconductors and design and implementa- tion of high frequency converters. Frans Pansier received his M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering at Technical University Delft in 1980. He joined Philips Consumer Electronics for development of magnetic components and power supplies for various applications. From 2006 - 2014 het worked at NXP for developing new controllers for power supplies. Since 2014 he is researcher and lecturer in Advanced Power Electronics at TUDelft. His main interests are off line power supplies with increased efficiency over all load conditions. This includes the optimal use of all components, incl. high frequency operation, EMI reduction and reliability. He holds over 30 patents. Sjoerd W. H. de Haan (M’99) received the M.Sc. degree in physics from Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, in 1975. He was with TPD-TNO (Applied Physics Research Center), Delft, where he was engaged in research in the field of heat transfer. He was an Assistant/ Associate Professor with Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. From 1993 to 1995, he was a Senior Researcher with ECN (The Netherlands Energy Research Foundation), Petten, The Netherlands, where he was in charge of research on electrical conversion systems for renewable energy systems, particularly wind energy and photovoltaic energy. Since 1995, he has been an Associate Professor in power electronics with Delft University of Technology, where he was a member of the scientific staff of the Power Electronics Laboratory in 1976. His current research interests include power quality conditioning, i.e., the development of power electronic systems for the conditioning of the power quality in the public electricity network, the development of an electronic tap changer for 10-kV distribution transformers, active filters for the elimination of specific harmonics, and pulse width-modulated rectifiers for asymmetrical grids. Jan Abraham Ferreira (M’88-SM’01- F’05) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1988. In 1981, he did research on battery vehicles at the Institute of Power Electronics and Electric Drives, Technical University of Aachen, Aachen, Germany, and worked in industry as a Systems Engineer with ESD (Pty) Ltd., Cloverdale, WA, Australia, from 1982 to 1985. From 1986 to 1997, he was with the Faculty of Engineering, Rand Afrikaans University, where he held the Carl and Emily Fuchs Chair of Power Electronics in later years. In 1998, he became a Professor of Power Electronics and Electrical Machines with the Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Dr. Ferreira was a Chairman of the South African Section of the IEEE from 1993 to 1994. He is the Founding Chairman of the IEEE Joint IAS/PELS Benelux chapter. He served as the Chairman of the IEEE IAS Power Electronic Devices and Components Committee from 1995 to 1996. He served as an Associate Editor of the PELS Transactions, PELS Treasurer, and VP-Meetings. He was the Chairman of the CIGRE SC14 National Committee of the Netherlands from 1999 to 2002 and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Power Electronic Association EPE Society (1999-2003; 2008-2011). He was the president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) from 2014 to 2016 and is the immediate-past president of PELS.

Abstract

Abstract: In design and implementation of a boost converter, information on loss characteristics of switching devices and magnetic materials is a prerequisite, especially in high frequency applications. To gather such information, testing and accurate loss quantification is needed. Previous methods for measuring magnetic core loss are either only suitable for sinusoidal wave excitations or cannot separate winding loss from inductor loss. In addition, existing loss measurement approaches on the newly introduced GaN transistors are not satisfactory. In this paper, we present a new method to distinguish winding loss from inductor loss under practical excitations. This method utilizes a converter to generate the actual excitation waveforms and uses a calorimetric setup to quantify the losses. By splitting up the inductor in a converter into an air-core inductor and a magnetic-core inductor, both equipped with exactly the same winding structure, the air-core inductor loss can be used as the reference of the magnetic-core inductor winding loss. In this way, losses in the magnetic core can be determined in the actual operating condition of a converter in which the inductor is to be used. Moreover, a simple calorimetric approach for obtaining loss information of GaN transistors are is also presented. Both methods require simple setup and are easy and convenient to execute. The methods work well in assessing different high frequency magnetic core materials and measuring losses in GaN transistors at 1MHz.

Key words: Core loss measurement, practical excitation, high frequency magnetic material, practical excitation, transistor loss measurement, calorimetric method

Wenbo Wang, Frans Pansier, Sjoerd de Haan, J. A. Ferreira. Novel and Simple Calorimetric Methods for Quantifying Losses in Magnetic Core and GaN Transistor in a High Frequency Boost Converter[J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2016, 2(2): 68-75.

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