2. Presenting Basic Magnetic Circuits with Inductors

This begins with building a simulation model for an inductor. Though it may appear that building a simulation model for an inductor is a silly and useless exercise, the purpose of doing so is to introduce the concept of magnetic circuits and how the magnetic laws can be combined with electrical laws in a simulation model. Since the inductor is the simplest magnetic component imaginable, this will ease us into the process of building a mathematical model using the laws of physics. In this chapter, we build an analogy between electrical circuits and magnetic circuits and describe how knowing the construction of an inductor, we can compute the flux in every part of the core of the inductor. Several simulations are presented with different core constructions. The simulations in this chapter can also be used by a power electronics engineer to verify designs of inductors as, quite often, power electronics engineers need to wind custom inductors especially while designing power supplies.