Effect of Switching Frequency and Number of Winding Layers on Copper Loss of an Inductor

H.Y. Chung and M.H. Pong

Power Electronics Laboratory Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong E-mail: hychung1@eee.hku.hk Abstract-Power inductor operating in a high frequency switching power converter experiences both core loss and copper loss. It is a common belief that the higher the switching frequency is, the higher will be the inductor loss. In this paper, we would like to demonstrate that this is not the case. In fact the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the inductor copper loss. This applies to inductor with centre-gapped, side-gapped and spacer configurations. In the loss analysis, an optimum number of inductor turns is derived analytically to minimize copper loss incurred by an inductor with side-gapped configuration. resistance of transformer windings. Reference [3], [4] and [5] utilize Dowells formula to find an optimum layer thickness to minimize copper loss. In [6], AC resistance of multilayer transformer windings with arbitrary current waveforms is optimized by a simple formula derived. All of them are try to optimize AC resistance by varying layer thickness. In fact other parameters such as switching frequency and number of turns can also be used as variables to optimize the design. The winding is placed far from airgaps of an inductor with side-gapped configuration. Fringing flux has little effect on the winding resistance hence Dowells formula can be applied with acceptable accuracy. It is presented in this paper analytically that in a switching power converter, increasing switching frequency can decrease the copper loss of an inductor with side-gapped configuration. It is also shown by using Finite Element Analysis tool Flux2D [7] that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the copper loss of inductors with centre-gapped and spacer configurations. Experiments are performed to further verify the proposition. In [8], it is found that increasing switching frequency has the effect of decreasing core loss of an inductor. As a result it is true to say that increasing switching frequency together with other corresponding converter design will decrease the total inductor loss, which is in contrary to traditional thinking. Another parameter is the number of winding layers. Utilizing Dowells formula, one can derive an optimum number of winding layers for inductor with side-gapped configuration. This proposition is proved using Finite Element Analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION
High-efficiency power conversion can be achieved only when high-efficiency transformer and inductor are used. Size minimization is a design challenge. One of the ways to reduce size of a switching power converter is by pushing up the switching frequency. In doing so, size of transformers, inductors and capacitors can be reduced. Increasing switching frequency however introduces high-frequency parasitic elements to magnetic components such as skin, proximity, edge and fringing flux effect. Therefore high-frequency magnetic design has long been an interest topic to both power electronics engineers and researchers. The loss of a magnetic component consists of core loss and copper loss. In this paper copper loss of an inductor is investigated. Switching frequency for switching power converters nowadays are high such that thickness of a winding layer is often smaller than the skin depth. Under this condition, Maxwells equation has to be used for loss calculation. Maxwells equation, although simple, is difficult to solve, especially for 2D or 3D cases. In many cases a closed form analytical solution is not available. To tackle this problem, Dowell proposed a closedform analytical formula to calculate ratio of AC resistance to DC resistance for a winding composed of m layers [1]. It is verified under certain conditions [2], Dowells formula gives a satisfactory prediction to AC

II. FREQUENCY EFFECT ON WINDING

COPPER LOSS
Side-gapped configuration Dowells formula is given by [1],
FR = X cosh( 2 X ) cos( 2 X ) sinh( 2 X ) + sin( 2 X ) + 2X

m 2 1 sinh( X ) sin( X ) (1) 3 cosh( X ) + cos( X )

D , D is the thickness of the winding layer, is the skin depth and m is the number of winding layers. where X = It is a function of frequency. This provides f a means to optimize winding losses by altering the switching frequency.
i(t)

of reducing current ripple I0. I02 is inversely proportional to square of switching frequency when the inductor is operating in continuous mode. Whether total loss will increase or not with switching frequency will depend on FR FR the factor FR/f2 and 2 4 . f X 4 The function FR/X is plotted against X for various m. Due to scaling problem, three graphs are used to plot for X from 0.5 to 3.5. It can be seen that FR/X4 is a monotonic decreasing function when frequency increases for m = 1 to 10.
30 25 FR(X)/X^4 20 15 10 5 0 0.5 1 X 1.5
m=10 m=9 m=8 m=7 m=6 m=5 m=4 m=3 m=2 m=1

I0

Idc

t DT T

Fig. 1. Continuous mode inductor current waveform

An inductor operating in continuous mode has current as a triangular wave shown in Fig. 1. The current waveform can be represented by Fourier series expansion, 2 I 0 sin(nD) Idc + sin(nt ) 2 2 n =1 n D(1 D)

Fig. 2. FR/X4 against X for X from 0.5 to 1.5

10
FR(X)/X^4

m=10 m=9 m=8 m=7 m=6 m=5 m=4 m=3

(2)

8 6 4 2

Total winding copper loss is given by, I 0 sin( nD) 2 2 2 Rdc + FRnRdc n =1 n D(1 D)

Idc

(3)

1.5

2
X

2.5

m=2 m=1

AC loss is given by,

Fig. 3. FR/X4 against X for X from 1.5 to 2.5

2

I 0 sin(nD) FRnRdc 2 2 2 n = 1 n D (1 D )

(4)
FR(X)/X^4

5 4 3 2 1

m=10 m=9 m=8 m=7 m=6 m=5 m=4 m=3

) ( ) F = n X ) cos(2 n X ) where m 1 sinh( n X ) sin( n X ) +2 nX 3 cosh( n X ) + cos( n X )

sinh 2 n X + sin 2 n X
Rn 2

( nX cosh(2

(5)

0 2.5 3
X

3.5

m=2 m=1

and X is the ratio of winding layer thickness to skin depth at fundamental switching frequency. At the first glance of (3), increasing frequency reduces skin depth, thereby increases X and FRn. Hence copper loss becomes higher. This is not correct. One should be careful that increasing switching frequency has the effect

Fig. 4. FR/X4 against X for X from 2.5 to 3.5

DC resistance Rdc will not be affected by frequency hence overall copper loss of an inductor operating in continuous mode decreases when frequency increases.

i(t) I0

t D1 T D2T T

nearest copper foil b=0.365mm and insulator width=0.10mm. To ensure acceptable high accuracy, meshes are defined with more than two elements per skin depth. Layer porosity [2], which is the ratio of the breadth of the equivalent foil conductor before stretching to the breadth of core window and is equal to 0.8474 in this case.
w b iw

Fig. 5. Discontinuous mode inductor current waveform

If an inductor operating in discontinuous mode, current flows through it is shown in Fig. 5 and can be represented by, I 0 D2 + 2

wcc lg wcs cc wcs

[ I 0 X cos(nt )] + [ I 0Y sin(nt )]
n =1 n =1

(6)

bc

Fig. 6. An inductor with side-gapped configuration and seventurn copper foil wound on an EE19 core

X = where

D2 cos( n ) + D1 cos(2nD2 n ) (7) Since the airgaps are far away from the winding, there is little fringing flux cutting across the inductor windings. As a result this inductor structure gives much less AC loss than the common inductor with centre-gap configuration. It is deemed to be the best inductor if EMI emitted is tolerable. Another advantage of this inductor is that the AC winding resistance can be accurately predicted by Dowells formula analytically. The results of FEA simulation are shown in Table I. The amplitude of second and third harmonics of a triangular current waveform is much less than that of the fundamental so that AC loss due to fundamental itself can reflect windings figure of merit. Frequency is varied and total losses are being compared. The third column of data is the AC loss due to the fundamental frequency by simulation. The forth column of data comprises AC loss due to the fundamental frequency predicted by Dowells formula. The fifth column of data is AC loss caused by triangular AC current.

2 2 n 2 D1( D1 D2 ) D1 cos( n ) D2 cos( 2nD1 n ) 2 2 n 2 D1( D1 D2) D1 sin(n ) + D1 sin(2nD2 n )

Y= and

2 2 n 2 D1( D1 D2) D2 sin(n ) D2 sin(2nD1 n ) 2 2 n 2 D1( D1 D2)

(8)

Total winding copper loss is given by, I 0 D2 2 I 02 X 2 + I 02 Y 2 FRnRdc R dc + 2 2 n =1

(9)

It can be seen from (9) that AC loss is proportional to I02, the amplitude of triangular current. I0 is inversely proportional to switching frequency. As a result similar conclusion can be drawn by the above analysis. The higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the AC copper loss. This analysis is applicable to an inductor with sidegapped configuration. As in this case, fringing flux has little effect on the AC winding resistance. It is also be proved numerically later that an inductor with centregapped configuration and spacers (with airgaps at all three magnetic-core legs) also reduce their losses when switching frequency is raised. In order to verify the proposition, computer simulations using software Flux2D on an inductor with side gapped configurations are performed. The structure is shown in Fig. 6. An EE19 magnetic core is used with wcc=4.7mm, bc=19.1mm, cc=8.1mm and wcs=2.4mm. The distance between centre magnetic core leg and the

TABLE I RESULTS OF SIMULATIONS (EE19 HS72 core, 7 turns,

side-gapped configurations, airgap size = 0.35mm, thickness of winding layer = 0.15mm)
Switching frequency (kHz) Fundamen tal rms current I1 (A) Copper loss due to I1 by FEA (W/m) Copper loss due to I1 by (12) (W/m) Total AC copper loss by (4) (W/m)

100 200 300 400

2 1 0.6667 0.5

1.199 0.620 0.479 0.413

0.806 0.538 0.470 0.426

0.888 0.593 0.508 0.454

It can be seen clearly that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the windings copper loss. The main reason is that during high-frequency operation, the AC current ripple will become lower and this effect

outweighs the increase in AC resistance and therefore overall AC copper loss reduces. To further verify the proposition a buck-boost converter is built as shown in Fig. 7.
S Cin Vin Co Ro D Vo
+

TABLE III RESULTS OF SIMULATIONS (EE19 HS72 core, 7 turns,

centre-gapped configurations, airgap size = 0.35mm, thickness of winding layer = 0.15mm)
Switching frequency (kHz) Fundamental rms current I1 (A) Copper loss due to I1 by FEA (W/m)

100 200 300 400

2 1 0.6667 0.5

9.6411 3.6851 2.1257 1.4670

TABLE IV RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT (EE19 H5C2 core, 4 turns,

centre-gapped configuration, airgap sizes = 0.20mm, inductance = 7.8H)
Switching frequency (kHz) p-p triangular current (A) Surface temperature (oC)

Fig. 7. A buck-boost converter

In the experimental setup, Cin = Cout = 470F. The switch is MOSFET IRF530. The diode is B20100. Vin = 15V, Iin = 2A, Vout = 7V and Iout = 3.5A. Duty cycle equals 0.35. The power loss of the inductor is difficult to be measured accurately. One of the easy methods is to measure the temperature of the inductor. The higher the surface temperature the higher is the power loss. The temperature is measured by Fluke data acquisition system. The point of contact is the copper surface of the outermost winding layer. The results are shown in Table II. Again it is can be seen that the higher the switching frequency is the lower is the copper loss incurred.

200 250 300 350 400

w b iw

3.20 2.56 2.16 1.83 1.60

w b

58.5 56.3 55.3 54.6 53.9

iw

wcc wcs lg cc wcs bc lg

wcc wcs cc wcs bc

TABLE II RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT (EE19 H5C2 core, 4 turns,

side-gapped configuration, airgap sizes = 0.10mm on each leg, inductance = 8.1H)
Switching frequency (kHz) p-p triangular current (A) Surface temperature (oC)

Fig. 8. An inductor with centre-gapped configuration and seven-turn copper foil wound on an EE19 core used in FEA simulation

Fig. 9. An inductor with spacer configuration and seven-turn copper foil wound on an EE19 core used in FEA simulation

200 250 300 350 400

3.08 2.32 1.93 1.71 1.54

50.4 48.3 47.9 47.0 46.7

Spacer configuration Spacer configuration means airgaps exist on all core legs of an EE core. Dowells formula cannot be applied since the magnetic field is distorted due to the introduction of airgaps. Table V and VI show the simulation (Fig. 9) and experimental results of copper losses of an inductor with spacer configuration. Again the higher the switching frequency, the lower is the copper loss. TABLE V RESULTS OF SIMULATIONS (EE19 HS72 core, 7 turns,
spacer configurations, airgap sizes = 0.20mm, thickness of winding layer = 0.15mm)
Switching frequency (kHz) Fundamental rms current I1 (A) Copper loss due to I1 by FEA (W/m)

Centre-gapped configuration If there exist airgap in centre leg, Dowells formula cannot be applied satisfactorily due to field distortion by fringing flux of centre airgap. The frequency effect can be looked into by means of numerical method FEA. Table III shows the effect of frequency on losses of the inductors with centre-gapped configuration by FEA simulation (Fig. 8). It is found that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be copper loss of inductors. Experimental results shown in Table IV also support the findings.

100 200 300 400

2 1 0.6667 0.5

3.223 1.200 0.680 0.463

TABLE VI RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT (EE19 BH1 core, 4 turns,

spacer configuration, airgap sizes = 0.20mm, inductance = 7.1H)
Switching frequency (kHz) p-p triangular current (A) Surface temperature (oC)

and AC loss is given by I 1 2 FRRdc

(12)

200 250 300 350 400

3.50 2.80 2.20 1.80 1.60

54.7 53.5 52.9 51.5 50.7

where FR is given by (1) and I1 is the fundamental rms I 0 sin( D) current given by I 1 = 2 2 (13) D(1 D) I0 can be represented by, I0 = VDT k = 2 2 2 Lm m
2

(14)

Summary of Section II It is verified that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the copper loss. This applies to inductors with centre-gapped, side-gapped and spacer configurations. The surface temperature of inductors with centre-gapped configuration is higher than that of inductors with spacer configuration, which is in turn higher than that of side-gapped configuration. This is because of fringing flux effect, which is most severe for the case of inductor with centre-gapped configuration. This implies that inductor with side-gapped configuration will give the lowest copper loss when compared with other configurations.

VDT where k = (15) 2L and m the number of winding layers and L the inductance for one-turn winding. Then total copper loss becomes, Ploss = Idc 2 ( mRdc) + Ak B + m 2 1 C ( mRdc) m4
2

( (

) )

(16) (17) (18) (19)

sin( D) where A = 2 2 D(1 D) B= X C=

III. EFFECT OF NUMBER OF WINDING

TURNS ON WINDING COPPER LOSS
Increasing number of winding turns has several effects on the loss of winding turns. This increases overall DC resistance, increases factor FR and boosts up the inductance. The first two aspects will increase total copper loss. The third one, boosting up the inductance, has the effect of reducing current ripple so that AC copper loss will become lower. Due to these constraints, there exist an optimum number of turns such that total copper loss will be at the minimum. Side-gapped configuration Again for an inductor operating in continuous mode, total copper loss is given by, I 0 sin(nD) FRnmRdc 2 2 2 (10) n =1 n D(1 D) where m is the number of turns and Rdc is the DC resistance of inductor per layer. Idc 2 mRdc +

2 X sinh( X ) sin( X ) 3 cosh( X ) + cos( X )

cosh( 2 X ) cos( 2 X )

sinh( 2 X ) + sin( 2 X )

Differentiate both sides with respect to m, we have, 3 AkRdc( B C ) AkRdcC dPloss = Idc 2 Rdc dm m4 m2 Put the expression equals zero we have Idc 2 m 4 ( AkC) m 2 + 3 Ak (C B ) = 0 (20)

( )

(21)

Then m is solved readily. The negative answer is ignored. The remaining m is put into (11) and the m that leads to minimum copper loss is the answer. Given some typical values, sometimes the value of m tends to be small. In that case, the less the number of turns which can satisfy the current ripple requirement should be selected. An inductor operating in discontinuous mode has total power loss represented by, 2 I 0 D2 I 02 X 2 + I 02 Y 2 mRdc + FRnmRdc (22) 2 2 n =1 where m is the number of turns and Rdc is the DC resistance of inductor per layer.

Losses incurred by harmonics are small compared with that incurred by fundamental, total loss can be approximated by,
I 0 sin( D) FRRdc = Idc 2 Rdc + I 1 2 FRRdc (11) Idc 2 Rdc + 2 2 D(1 D)
2

I0 is inversely proportional to inductance and inductance is directly proportional to m2. As a result I02 is inversely k2 proportional to m4. Let I 0 2 = 4 so that we have total m power loss be given by, X 2 + Y 2 FRn k 2 Rdc (23) 2 m3 n =1 Hence it can be seen that for inductor operating in discontinuous mode, the larger the number of turns is the lower will be its winding copper loss.

frequency, the lower will be the copper loss. This is contrary to ordinary thinking. The predicted results agree well with the FEA simulation results. For an inductor with centre-gapped configuration or spacer configuration, Dowells formula cannot be applied in calculating of AC winding layer. It is found from numerical simulation FEA that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be their copper losses. A buck-boost converter is built to test the losses of inductors. The copper loss is measured indirectly by obtaining surface temperature of an inductor. The results support our analytical analysis and FEA simulation that for inductors with centre-gapped, side-gapped or spacer configurations, the higher the switching frequency applied, the lower instead of higher copper loss results. In [8], it is found that the higher the switching frequency, the lower will be the core loss. As a result the overall power loss of inductors reduces when the switching frequency increases. In this paper an optimum number of layers which leads to minimum copper loss is calculated analytically for an inductor with side-gapped configuration for continuous mode of current flowing. For discontinuous mode of current flow, it is found that the higher the winding number the less will be the copper loss.

k 2 Rdc D2 + m3 2

An optimum number of layers is found by (21) and then the result is verified by FEA. Assume in (15), k = 322, layer thickness W = 0.27mm, switching frequency = 250kHz, Idc = 4A and AC rms fundamental current 2 I 0 sin( D) VDT k given by 2 where I 0 = = 2 , we 2 D(1 D) m 2 Lm have optimum number of layers m calculated as 5.055. The proposition is verified by using Flux2D. The result is shown in Table VII. The simulation agrees with predicted case that they both give the optimum number of layers to be 5. When the number of turns deviates from this optimum value total copper loss tends to increase. Note also the predicted value matches with simulated one well. That implies Dowells formula can be used to calculate AC resistance of inductor windings with side-gapped configuration.

REFERENCES
1. 2. Dowell, P.L., Effects of eddy currents in transformer windings, IEE Proceeding 1966, pages 1387 to 1394. Andrey M. Urling, Van A. Niemela, Glenn R. Skutt and Thomas G. Wilson, Characterizing High-Frequency Effects in Transformer Windings A Guide to Several Significant Articles, APEC Proceedings 1989, pages 373 to 385. P.S. Venkatraman, Winding Eddy Current Losses in Switch Mode Power Transformers Due to Rectangular Wave Currents, Proceedings of Powercon 11 1984, section A-1, pages 1 to 11. B. Carsten, High Frequency Conductor Losses in Switchmode Magnetics, HFPC proceedings 1986, pages 155 to 176. J. Vandelac, P.D. Ziogas, A Novel Approach for Minimizing High-Frequency Transformer Copper Losses, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, volume 3, 1988, pages 266 to 276. W.G. Hurley, E. Gath and J.G. Breslin, Optimizing the AC Resistance of Multilayer Transformer Windings with Arbitrary Current Waveforms, PESC Proceedings 1999, pages 580 to 585. Flux2D Version 7.3X Users Guide, Magsoft Corporation H.Y. Chung, F.N.K. Poon. C.P. Liu and M.H. Pong, Analysis of Buck-Boost Converter Inductor Loss Using a Simple Online B-H Curve Tracer, APEC Proceedings 2000, pages 640 to 646.

TABLE VII RESULTS OF SIMULATIONS (EE19 HS72 core, sidegapped configuration, switching frequency = 250kHz, airgap size = 0.35mm, thickness of winding layer = 0.27mm)
Number of turns Fundamen tal rms current I1 (A) Cu loss due to I1 by FEA simulation + DC Cu loss (W/m) Cu loss due to I1 by (12) + DC Cu loss (W/m) Total Cu loss by (3) (W/m)

3.

3 4 5 6 7

2.038 1.146 0.734 0.509 0.374

1.151 1.031 1.019 1.054 1.115

1.232 1.090 1.057 1.074 1.118

1.293 1.113 1.075 1.089 1.131

4.

5.

IV. CONCLUSION
The effect of switching frequency and number of winding layers on copper loss of an inductor operating in either continuous or discontinuous mode is investigated with the aid of Dowells formula. For an inductor with side-gapped configuration, it is found that Dowells formula is a good estimate to windings AC resistance. It is proved analytically the higher the switching

6.

7. 8.