Design Analysis of High Frequency Linear Transformer with Ārtap Framework

Abstract

This paper presents the design and a design analysis of a coaxial, linear transformer. This is a novel high frequency transformer concept for energy conversion. The examined transformer was designed for 1 MHz nominal frequency. One of the main advantages of the proposed transformer design is its simple winding system. It contains only two coaxial copper tubes, which can be easily manufactured and modeled with high precision. One of the key design tasks is the minimization of the leakage inductance. The inductance of the straight coils depends on the ratio of the height and the diameter of the coil. Therefore, a three-dimensional FEM analysis is sufficient to calculate the optimal length of the linear transformer. The planar 2D model and the 3D model of the transformer are presented in this paper. The accuracy of the 2D and 3D calculation results were compared to each other and to the measurements to show the applicability of the planar 2D models. Moreover, the sensitivity of the losses and the leakage inductance with respect to the winding parameters is presented. The dependencies of the design variables on the performance parameters, such as the power mass density and the leakage inductance of this transformer concept were examined. It was shown that the value of the leakage inductance is a linear function of the ratio of the length and the diameter of the transformer windings.