Test Setup for Characterisation of Biased Magnetic Hysteresis Loops in Power Electronic Applications

Hysteresis effect of core materials contributes significantly to the power loss and nonlinearity of the transformers and filter inductors in power electronic applications. For design or modeling of the magnetic components, information of the magnetic material’s characteristic under the desired operation condition is usually required. In many common types of power converters the magnetic components undertake biased excitation, which leads to hysteresis loop with DC-offset on both magnetic field strength and flux density. This work proposes a test setup combining both linear amplifier and switching cells, which is able to conveniently generate magnetic hysteresis loops at arbitrary biased levels.