Study on a Three-Phase Inductor Based on Equal Magnetic Flux Path

Owing to a uniform air-gap distribution of the magnetic powder materials, it is found that the conventional structure of a three-phase inductor made of magnetic powder cores will cause the three-phase magnetic flux paths to be unequal, thereby making the three-phase input voltages of a pulsewidth modulation (PWM) rectifier imbalanced. This paper presents a novel magnetic powder core structure applicable to a three-phase inductor for PWM rectifier. An equal magnetic flux path for the inductor core is designed to solve the imbalance problem of three-phase voltages. The proposed design is based on measuring the maximum flux density and the inductance values, modeled with electromagnetic simulation of a three-dimensional finite-element method. Simulation and experimental results of the proposed design show that it reduces the three-phase voltage imbalance to less than 3%. Furthermore, the unit volume of the three-phase inductor is reduced by 34% and 23%, and the efficiency is increased by 1.2% and 0.9%, compared to those of a conventional three-phase silicon-steel core inductor and three single-phase inductors, respectively.