Effective properties and eddy current losses of soft magnetic composites
Romain Corcolle, Xiaotao Ren, Laurent Daniel
Abstract
This paper presents a semi-analytical homogenization model for Soft Magnetic Composites (SMCs), providing the effective magnetic behavior and the level of Eddy Current (EC) losses. Both linear and nonlinear magnetic behavior are considered. A magnetic circuit made of SMC is then modeled with a Finite Element Model (FEM). The size of heterogeneities of SMC being much smaller than the device size, the proposed approach relieves the burden of a very fine mesh in the FEM, by using the effective properties of an equivalent homogeneous material. The approach is validated by comparing the results on the homogenized magnetic circuit with the ones obtained from a computationally heavy FEM describing the heterogeneities with a very fine mesh. The results show that the homogenized model provides a very accurate description of the magnetic behavior and EC losses of SMC for both linear and nonlinear cases.