2022 article
Design of Variable Air-Core Coupled Co-axial Solenoidal Inductors
2022 IEEE ENERGY CONVERSION CONGRESS AND EXPOSITION (ECCE).
Variable inductors find their application in many power electronics circuits. This paper discusses the design and prototype of an air-core coupled co-axial solenoidal inductor as a variable inductor. Analytical modeling and FEA simulations are used to design and optimize a coupled solenoidal variable inductor with a maximum inductance of 18.4 µH at 2 MHz. It is observed that the quality factor of a coupled variable inductor is a function of coupling between the inner and outer windings. It is shown that the quality factor of the variable inductor can be increased by 20% by following the proposed optimization. An experimental inductor prototype is built using 3-D printed support and Litz wire. It is observed that the experimental results closely match the simulation ones.