Collaborative Research: Advances in High-Frequency Magnetics for High-Efficiency, High-Density Power Electronic Systems

电力电子--处理能量的电子电路--在各种节能和可再生能源技术中发挥着关键的推动作用，对为其他类型的电子系统供电也是必不可少的。体积更小、效率更高、成本更低的电力电子设备对于所有这些系统的持续改进至关重要。电感和变压器等磁性元件通常是电力电子中最大且通常是有损耗的元件。此外，磁性元件设计的局限性一直是实现小型化实质性改进的主要障碍。到目前为止，电力电子技术的进步得益于工作频率的提高，但磁学技术的局限性阻碍了这一趋势的继续。该项目将开发高频磁元件的设计方法，以缓解这些限制，并将它们应用于开发小型化、高效的电力电子产品。其成果将在电子系统、能源的有效终端使用和可再生能源系统的许多不同应用中有用，从而降低它们的成本并提高它们的能源效率。该项目将吸引本科生和研究生参与研究，加强他们在这一重要领域的技能。将寻求代表性不足的群体的参与，并将仔细指导研究参与者。达特茅斯和麻省理工学院之间正在进行的研究合作将得到加强和扩展，以包括教育活动，包括向K-12学生推广科学和工程。改进电力电子的一个关键途径是开发在比目前使用的开关频率高得多的开关频率下高效运行的转换器(例如，在3-30 MHz的高频范围内)。更高的开关频率导致无源组件(包括磁性组件)的能量存储需求降低，这可被用来减小电力电子设备的尺寸和成本，并提高性能(例如，更高的带宽)。要实现这些好处，需要在高频电源电路和磁性元件设计方面共同进步。由于缺乏高频磁性材料的性能数据，以及对如何设计高频功率磁体的理解不足，阻碍了这方面的进展。最近的工作表明，一些商用低磁导率磁性材料在该频率范围内具有高性能，如果能够开发利用这些材料的磁性组件和电路设计，则能够实现电力电子设备的大幅小型化(例如，总尺寸减少2-10倍)。拟议的研究计划将开发利用低磁导率材料的高频功率磁元件的设计方法，并将进一步研究如何最好地应用这些元件来实现高密度、高效率的电力电子产品。这项研究将开发使用低磁导率材料降低铁心和绕组损耗的设计技术；研究优化的铁心和绕组几何结构；创建改进的高频绕组模型和设计，并开发新的自屏蔽高频磁结构。此外，还将研究能够有效利用这些高频磁性元件的能力的功率转换器设计，并将其应用于实现在高频下运行的小型化电力电子设备。

Power electronics - electronic circuits that process energy - plays a key enabling role in a wide range of energy-efficient and renewable-energy technologies, and is also essential for powering other types of electronic systems. Smaller, more efficient, and less costly power electronics are critical to continued improvement of all these systems. Magnetic components such as inductors and transformers are typically the largest and usually lossy components in power electronics. Moreover, limitations in magnetic component design have been a major obstacle to realizing substantial improvements in miniaturization. To date, advances in power electronics have been enabled by increases in operating frequency, but limitations in magnetics technologies are inhibiting continuation of this trend. This project will develop design methods for high-frequency magnetics, mitigating these limitations, and will apply them to develop miniaturized, high-efficiency power electronics. The results will be useful across many different applications in electronic systems, efficient end-use of energy, and renewable energy systems, reducing their cost and improving their energy efficiency. The project will engage undergraduate and graduate students in the research, strengthening their skills in this important area. Participation of under-represented groups will be sought, and research participants will be carefully mentored. An ongoing research collaboration between Dartmouth and MIT will be strengthened and extended to include educational activities, including outreach to K-12 students to promote science and engineering.A key route to improvement of power electronics is the development of converters that operate efficiently at substantially higher switching frequencies than are presently used (e.g., in the High-Frequency, or HF, range of 3-30 MHz). Higher switching frequencies result in reduced energy storage requirements of the passive components (including magnetic components), which can be leveraged to reduce size and cost of power electronics, and to improve performance (e.g., higher bandwidth.) Joint advances in high-frequency power circuits and magnetic component design are needed to realize these benefits. Advances have been hindered both by a lack of performance data for HF magnetic materials and a poor understanding of how to design power magnetics for HF. Recent work has revealed that some commercial low-permeability magnetic materials have high performance in this frequency range, enabling substantial miniaturization of power electronics (e.g., factors of 2-10 reduction in overall size) if magnetic component and circuit designs leveraging these materials can be developed. The proposed research program will develop design methods for power magnetic components at HF frequencies utilizing low-permeability materials, and will further investigate how these components can best be applied to realize high-density, high-efficiency power electronics. The research will develop design techniques for achieving reduced core and winding losses with low permeability materials; investigate optimized core and winding geometries; create improved models and designs for high-frequency windings, and develop new self-shielding HF magnetic structures. Moreover, power converter designs that can effectively leverage the capabilities of these HF magnetic components will be investigated and applied to realize miniaturized power electronics operating at HF.