Thermal Performance Study on Pulsed Inductor

Based on the features of large heating power per unit volume and small cooling surface area, the thermal management is one of the key technologies and plays a significant role for the pulsed inductor. A mathematical model that describes the heat transfer and thermal accumulation processes with the operating condition of periodic pulse loading for the pulsed inductor has been developed and validated in this paper, and the model results show a fine accuracy as compared with the test data. In addition, a computer code has been implemented to simulate the thermal accumulation and performance of natural cooling with different operating conditions (as the various of pulse voltage, pulse spacing, and pulse duration). The results show that the pulse voltage, pulse spacing, and pulse duration are the focus factors to the thermal accumulation for the pulsed inductor, and the effect of the natural cooling by surface area of the inductor is poor under the periodic pulse loading.