PWM inverter-excited iron loss characteristics of a reactor core

In this paper, we focus on an evaluation of iron losses in a reactor core under pulse width modulation (PWM) inverter excitation. We examine the inverter- and sinusoidal-fed iron losses of the reactor core through both experiments and numerical simulations. The proposed measurement includes operation at a higher frequency than is used commercially. We discuss the building factor (BF) of reactor losses under PWM inverter and sinusoidal excitations based on material iron losses measured in a ring specimen. The BF calculation based on inverter-fed tests is an almost constant value because the magnetic flux density distributions related to the carrier frequency mostly do not depend on the reactor gaps.