Powder Material for Inductor Cores Evaluation of MPP, Sendust and High flux core characteristics

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the performance of alternative powder materials and compare these with conventional iron and ferrite cores when used as inductors. Permeability measurements were performed where both DC-bias and frequency were swept, the inductors were put into a small buck converter where the overall efficiency was measured. The BH-curve characteristics and core loss of the materials were also investigated. The materials showed good performance compared to the iron and ferrite cores. High flux had the best DC-bias characteristics while Sendust had the best performance when it came to higher frequencies and MPP had the lowest core losses. Sendust had the overall best results when comparing all materials and another positive aspect is that they are not limited in which shapes they can be made.