Transformer Integration Surface Geometry for High-Frequency Loss Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
High switching frequencies in switched-mode power supplies lead to increased switching losses and stray capacitance, making it difficult to increase power while maintaining efficiency and compactness, as conventional methods like Litz wires and coil interleaving are ineffective outside the transformer windings.
Innovation Solution
A transformation device with a first current circulation loop that is wider than it is long, reducing losses in connection currents and components linked to the transformer, thereby enhancing efficiency without increasing the device's volume.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If high switching frequency is used to reduce volume of reactive elements, then compactness is improved, but efficiency deteriorates due to increased switching losses and skin effect
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the connection means into multiple conductive paths (first connection means and second connection means) between the windings and electrical components. This segmentation allows the connection current to be distributed across multiple paths, reducing the current density and associated losses in each individual path, thereby mitigating the efficiency deterioration at high switching frequencies while maintaining compact dimensions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a dimensional optimization by making the integration surface extend primarily in the width direction rather than the length direction. This dimensional reorientation reduces the path length that connection currents must travel through high-resistance paths, effectively reducing the impact of skin effect and proximity effect losses without increasing the overall volume of the device.
2Volume of moving object
If high switching frequency is used to reduce volume of reactive elements, then compactness is improved, but efficiency deteriorates due to increased skin and proximity effects
Solution Approach 1:
The connection means is segmented into multiple conductive paths that are spatially separated. This segmentation reduces the proximity effect between conductors carrying high-frequency currents, as the magnetic fields from adjacent conductors no longer interact as strongly. Consequently, skin and proximity effect losses are reduced while maintaining the compact volume enabled by high switching frequency operation.
Solution Approach 2:
By reorienting the integration surface to extend in the width direction, the patent increases the spacing between adjacent conductors in the direction of current flow. This dimensional change reduces the strength of magnetic coupling between adjacent conductors, thereby reducing proximity effects and associated losses while preserving the compact form factor.
3Power
If power is increased by increasing conductor section, then power capacity is improved, but efficiency deteriorates due to increased relative significance of stray capacitances and electrical resistance at high frequency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the connection path into multiple parallel conductive paths, which allows the power capacity to be increased by adding more paths rather than increasing the cross-section of individual conductors. This approach avoids increasing the relative significance of stray capacitances that would occur with larger conductor sections, while still achieving the desired power capacity increase through parallel current paths.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of increasing power capacity by increasing conductor cross-section in the traditional direction, the patent utilizes the width dimension of the integration surface to accommodate multiple parallel connection paths. This dimensional approach allows power capacity to scale without proportionally increasing the electrical resistance and stray capacitance losses that would accompany larger individual conductor sections at high frequencies.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Significantly reduces high-frequency losses in connection currents and components, improving the overall efficiency of the transformation device and switched-mode power supply.
Implementation Method 1
The transformer comprises windings forming at least one primary coil and at least one secondary coil, and a magnetic circuit allowing them to be coupled
Implementation Method 2
The skin effect results from the fact that a conductor, passed through by an alternating current, generates a magnetic field which, by feedback, tends to create a current neutralizing the initial current, with the consequence of 'driving' the alternating current into the periphery of the conductor
Implementation Method 3
This effect exists also between two adjacent conductors, when the magnetic field created by the current in one conductor affects the distribution of the current in the second: this is then called proximity effect
Data Source
AI summary
Transformation device including a transformer, first electrical components and connections, the transformer including a first winding and a second winding, the first electrical components being connected via the connections between first terminals of the first winding, the first electrical components extending over an integration surface situated between the connections, the integration surface, the connections and a portion of the first winding forming portions of circulation of a first current circulation loop, the transformation device being arranged for a connection current to circulate in the first current circulation loop, each portion of circulation being wider than it is long in the line of circulation of the connection current.