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Advanced Magnetic Materials and Geometries

T07.9 - Advantageous Applications for Permanent Magnet Hybrid Core Inductors

Tuesday, March 24, 2026
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM CT
Location: 217C
In many power applications, inductor designs are limited by saturation. One way to boost their saturation capability is to add a permanent magnet (PM) to oppose flux in the core due to winding current. Such an inductor, called a PM hybrid core inductor, can achieve more energy storage or lower loss than conventional single-material cores. To streamline design of PM hybrid inductors, this work provides a first-order design process that considers currents with non-negligible ac ripple. This work also develops theory indicating that PM hybrid designs are most advantageous in applications at small sizes and where core loss is relatively low, such as at small current ripple ratios or low frequencies. Finally, this work introduces a new E-core based geometry suitable for high-performance PM hybrid core inductor designs. Compared to similarly-sized ferrite inductors, a prototype of this geometry achieved 30% more energy storage or reduced loss by up to half, with greater gains at smaller ripple ratios, supporting the developed theory.