46 PIERS Proceedings, Cambridge, USA, July 58, 2010

Magnetic Field Distribution of a Novel Variable Inductor Based on

Orthogonal Magnetization
Zhengrong Jiang
1
, Zhengxi Li
1
, and Jianye Chen
2
1
Department of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, North China University of Technology
Beijing 100144, China
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Abstract A computation method for the magnetic eld distribution of a novel variable in-
ductor based on orthogonal magnetization is presented. The inductor includes two windings,
one is an ac winding for exciting ac eld, another is a dc winding for creating dc bias eld, the
latter is perpendicular to the former. The vector combination results in a semi-rotating eld in
the core and make the hysteresis shearing. This feature makes the variable inductor safely
and have linearly characteristic in case application on HVDC. The eect on material magnetic
characteristic caused by orthogonal bias eld is explained and the eld distribution is computed,
the calculated results are consistent with the experimental data well.
1. INTRODUCTION
With the development of HVDC transmission, a greater demand for high quality variable inductor
is expected. The safety and linearity are essential to the application of voltage variation, VAR com-
pensator, harmonic ltering and DC-AC converter. Several magnetic devices for variable inductor
have been presented [1]. However, the harmonics of the output current can not be neglected.
In this paper, we present an approach to control the permeability of an inductor core made of
toroidal grain oriented Fe-Si laminations. This approach is based on the vectorial magnetization
response of the core under two orthogonal eld components. The vectorial sum results in a semi-
rotating eld in the inductor core. This method brings about many good virtues. Details of the
inductor under consideration, its analytical aspects, numerical simulations and control characteristic
are given in the following sections.
2. INDUCTOR STRUCTURE AND MAGNETIZATION MECHINISM
The novel variable inductor consist of a vacant winding and a toroidal core winding, the former
is the main coil and connected with AC exciting current, the latter is placed in the former and
connected with DC control current.
Due to the two windings orthogonal orientation, there is no inductance voltage in the DC control
winding, hence the DC control element is safe even if under a high voltage application.
As for the oriented Fe-Si lamination core, it is subjected to two direction magnetic elds, one
is the shifting

H(t) in the axis direction (often as easy axis of Fe-Si silicon sheet) creating by AC
current, another is circumaxile H

which derives from DC current. It is perpendicular to the

H(t),
thus a semi-rotating eld is created in the Fe-Si core.
Conventionally the magnetic properties of material are analysed assuming that the directions of
B and H are parallel. However, under the orthogonal elds the magnetic properties of the oriented
lamination core are related by tensor permeability since B vector is not parallel to H vector in
the core and permeability depend on magnetic ux density [2], the eective core permeability
can be described phenomenally by a complex permeability =

, the permeability tensor

consists of an anisotropic matrix involving the permeabilities
x
and
y
and a rotating matrix,
which describes the perpendicular component H

by shifting

H(t) with an angle in space. The
relationship of B, H and permeability can be described as

B =

cos sin
sin cos

x
0
0
y

H =



H (1)
where, is the loss angle and = arc(

H) arc(

B).
As for the rotating matrix, the diagonal terms represent for alternating ux permeability tensors
and the o-diagonal terms denotes the rotational ones [3]. When the phase dierence between B
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Cambridge, USA, July 58, 2010 47
and H caused by rotational hysteresis is considered the permeability tensor becomes the full tensor
as follows:

B
x
B
y

xx

xy

yx

yy

H
x
H
y

(2)
The two-dimensional governing equation including two dimensional magnetic property is written
as follow:

v
yy
A
x

+

y

v
xx
A
y

v
yx
A
y

v
xy
A
x

= J
0
J
m
(3)
where, A is the magnetic vector potential, is the reluctivity tensor, J
0
is the current density and
J
m
is the equivalent magnetizing current density.
The non-linear Equation (3) is solved using the Newton-Raphson method and the eld distri-
bution of ux in the grain oriented lamination core can be calculated.
3. B-H HYSTERESIS AND FIELD DISTRIBUTION
Figure 2 shows the hysteresis loops of the grain-oriented lamination core under the various DC
bias currents. The measurements are performed under dc and ac eld simultaneously. It is clearly
apparent that the orthogonal bias eld (dc eld) changed the hysteresis behavior of the magnetic
material, the B-H loops shows a shearing with increasing dc current. The magnetization at
maximum applied eld, the remanence and the coercivity all decreased with increasing orthogonal
bias eld. Whence the orthogonal bias eld alters the inductance of the device.
Figure 3 shows the nite model of the grain oriented core. The circumcolumnar arrows denote
the ac exciting current, the dc control current is divided into four sections toroidally. Figure 4
shows the ux distribution.
According to Neels phase theory [4], the hysteretic magnetization curve is dependent on the
direction of the applied eld relative to the easy axis. Looking at above B-H measurement results,
the B-H loop became less slope with increasing dc bias current. it is realized that the orthogonal
dc bias eld aects the magnetization process by enhancing the anisotropy of the grain oriented
laminations and gives rise to a decrease in eective inductance of the device. The role of dc bias
eld is like a magnetic valve on the path to control the ux. It can be seen from Figure 4.
Figure 1: Inductor based on orthogonal magnetiza-
tion.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 2: B-H loop with various dc bias current
(a)0 A, (b) 1 A, (c) 2 A, (d) 3 A.
48 PIERS Proceedings, Cambridge, USA, July 58, 2010
Figure 3: Loading current density in nite ele-
ment model.
Figure 4: Flux distribution of grain-oriented core.
Figure 5: Control characteristic.
4. CONTROL CHARACTERISTIC
Under various main ac currents from 98.95 mA to 390.5 mA, the inductor is subject to series dc
control currents from 0 A to 10 A respectively. Write down the voltages and currents of the inductor
accordingly, then the ecient inductance can be given as:
L =

U
2f

I
(mH) (4)
The following is the control characteristic curve.
From the control characteristic, we found that the control ability of DC current to the main
inductance decrease with the main current increasing, it is because that when the eld caused by
the main current is much larger than the dc bias MMF, the domain wall rotation is prevailing
subject to ac exciting eld and the dc bias eld has no signicant eect on the overall eective
inductance any more.
5. CONCLUSION
The permeability of magnetic materials can be changed by applying a orthogonal dc magnetic eld
which is oriented perpendicular to the main ux direction, in this way the inductance of the main coil
can be controlled. This method has the eect of lowering the permeability by adding anisotropic
of the magnetic material without aecting the linearity of the magnetizing process [5]. Due to
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Cambridge, USA, July 58, 2010 49
maintaining magnetization linearity no additional harmonics are produced on the application of
HVDC.
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