Controlling linearity and permeability of iron core inductors using field orientation techniques

The availability of high quality variable inductors has always been essential to devices used in different power engineering instrumentation. Different attempts have been made to improve the characteristics of iron core inductors. This paper presents an approach through which an iron core inductor linearity and permeability ranges may be controlled. The approach is based on experimentally observed vectorial magnetization response of magnetic materials to orthogonal field components. By the aid of 2-D vector Preisach model simulations were carried out to investigate performance of a laminated steel core inductor designed according to the proposed approach. Experimental measurements for the inductance variation of a particular core were acquired and found in agreement with corresponding simulations.