A Novel Cost-Effective Magnetic Characterization Tool for Soft Magnetic Materials Used in Electrical Machines

• Energy losses during the magnetization process of soft magnetic laminations depend on the excitation waveform. Manufacturers of magnetic materials may not provide lasses for different excitation waveforms. This may affect the accuracy of the predicted losses which are used to estimate the performance of electrical equipment during the predesign stage. Thus, a characterization tool which is capable of measuring hysteresis loops under controlled magnetization is required. Digital characterization systems available in literature use expensive commercial power amplifiers. In this work, a cost-effective power amplifier circuit is developed and interfaced with a LabVIEW program to characterize soft magnetic materials. The measurements for a sinusoidal excitation from the proposed setup are validated with those from a standard commercial measuring setup. The system is also used to measure hysteresis loops for arbitrary magnetization conditions (magnetic flux density (B) with harmonics). The proposed setup can operate over a frequency range 35-500 Hz. A small Epstein frame is also designed for measurements at higher frequencies (>200 and <500 Hz). A provision is also made to predict three components of dynamic hysteresis lasses at any frequency in the above range using the loss separation approach. This capability of the setup enables the user to predict the losses at frequencies beyond the capability of the tool. The predicted losses using this algorithm are validated with measured losses. The proposed setup is cost-effective and can be developed easily using basic electronic components.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Annan elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

LabVIEW

loss measurement

loss separation

magnetic characterization

power amplifier

power opamp

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)