Investigation and Prediction of PWM-Induced Iron Loss in Lamination Steels Using High-Frequency Inverters with Wide-Bandgap Switches

The availability of wide-bandgap (WBG) power switches makes it possible to excite electric machines with much higher PWM switching frequencies. This paper experimentally characterizes the magnetic and iron loss properties of lamination steels over a wide range of frequencies and magnetization states excited by a voltage-source inverter (VSI) using GaN-based WBG switches. With the collected hysteresis loop and iron loss data, a new frequency-interconnected dynamic Jiles-Atherton (J-A) model is developed explicitly for PWM-induced iron loss analysis. Experiments have been conducted to verify the model prediction accuracy over a broad range of operating conditions. The obtained results demonstrate that the model parameters identified from a limited number of frequency and amplitude conditions are sufficient to apply to a much broader range of conditions. The proposed model has been integrated with a dynamic hysteresis model devoted to fundamental field iron loss estimation, providing an accurate and efficient tool for total iron loss estimation during PWM voltage excitation using high-frequency WBG devices.