CAREER: Power Magnetics for MHz Frequencies

这个NSF CAREER项目旨在提高电能转换系统的尺寸和效率，这在许多促进科学进步，促进国家繁荣和国防安全的应用中至关重要。该项目将带来革命性的变化，使功率转换器的运行速度提高十倍，从而存储的能量减少十倍，缩小尺寸并提高效率。这将通过推进磁性元件（电感器和变压器）的科学来实现，这是提高速度和尺寸的最重要瓶颈。该项目的智力优势包括新的快速优化模型，新的组件结构和设计，新的材料应用，以及通过能够高速研究高功率组件的工程平台实现进一步发展。该项目更广泛的影响包括科学和教育两个组成部分。功率转换器尺寸和效率的提高将使可再生能源的更大普及、更轻且更实惠的电动汽车、海军和航空旅行的电气化以及更实惠的半导体成为可能。该项目还将通过真实的、以项目为导向的课程和课外活动将这些科学进步带入课堂，使所有学生，特别是第一代大学生受益。随着功率转换器开关频率的增加，能量存储和尺寸减少，遇到的最大障碍是磁性元件的能量损失。这种障碍在兆赫（MHz）范围内变得更加显著，在该范围内，唯一的精确建模方法非常慢，抑制高频涡流的少数可用技术变得不可行，典型的芯材料变得非常有损耗，并且可用的表征方法不能实现良好的精度。所有这些障碍都阻碍了磁性元件的设计、优化、制造和表征，而这些都是开启功率转换下一个数量级改进所必需的。该项目将通过新的准确和快速建模、涡流抑制设计、新材料和现有材料的研究以及在MHz或数十MHz下准确表征核心和组件的平台，实现MHz操作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This NSF CAREER project aims to improve the size and efficiency of electric energy conversion systems which are critical in many applications which progress science, advance national prosperity, and secure national defense. The project will bring transformative change by allowing power converters to operate ten times faster and therefore store ten times less energy, reducing size and improving efficiency. This will be achieved by advancing the science of magnetic components (inductors and transformers) which are the most significant bottleneck to this improved speed and size. The intellectual merits of the project include new rapid models for optimization, new component structures and designs, new applications for materials, and enabling further advancement through engineered platforms capable of studying high-power components at high speed. The broader impacts of the project include both scientific and educational components. Improved size and efficiency of power converters will enable greater proliferation of renewable energy, lighter and more affordable electric vehicles, the electrification of naval and air travel, and more affordable semiconductors. This project will also bring these scientific advances into the classroom through authentic, project-oriented courses and extracurricular activities which benefit all students and especially first-generation college students.As power converters increase in switching frequency to decrease energy storage and size, the most significant barrier encountered is the energy loss in magnetic components. This barrier becomes even more significant in the megahertz (MHz) regime where the only accurate modeling methods are prohibitively slow, the few available techniques to suppress high-frequency eddy currents become unfeasible to manufacture, typical core materials become very lossy, and available characterization approaches cannot achieve good accuracy. All of these barriers stand to inhibit the design, optimization, manufacturing, and characterization of magnetic components which are required to unlock the next order-of-magnitude improvement in power conversion. This project will enable MHz operation with new accurate and rapid modeling, eddy-current suppressing designs, investigation of new materials and existing materials repurposed for power conversion, and platforms to characterize both cores and components accurately at MHz or tens of MHz.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.