Alex M. Leary is a Research Materials Engineer at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH. He graduated with B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2000, a M.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016. From 2002-2012, he served on active duty in the United States Navy. His research interests center around the development of magnetic cores for high power density applications including material development, design optimization, and performance characterization.
Electrical systems with high power and high power density are integral to many aerospace and energy applications. These systems, enabled by power electronics with wide bandgap semiconductor devices, require management of both efficiency/thermal aspects and electromagnetic interference that are problems specific to high power and high frequency applications, respectively. In addition to advanced active components, these applications also require passive components (inductors, capacitors, conductors) capable of operation under challenging conditions. This work surveys the state of the art of magnetic components and soft magnetic materials used as inductive cores. The wide variety of motor and converter topologies translates to a variety of requirements in the magnetics including mechanical properties, permeabilities, and frequency response. The scaling impact of material properties will be surveyed with respect to component performance and sizing, using both data from experiment and the published literature. Variations on simulations, both in lumped circuits and finite element models, will also be discussed as these are important aspects of the design phase of modern power electronics.
Connect the performance envelope of passive magnetic components commonly used in aerospace electrical power systems to material properties, both for commercially available and emerging core materials.
