Eddy-Current Effects In Magnetic Design (Part 1): The Skin Effect
by Dennis Feucht, Innovatia Laboratories, Cayo, Belize, How2Power Today, Aug 15 2016
Focus:
One of the more troublesome aspects of transductor (magnetic component) design is the winding
design—the electrical aspect of transductor design. What complicates it the most are eddy-
current effects: the skin and proximity effects. The goal of this six-part article series—a
mini-course—is to explain and clarify eddy-current effects, provide some useful graphs and
design equations, and explain how to use them in winding design for a more optimized
transductor. Part 1 of this series explains the origin of the skin effect and analyzes some key
expressions related to it that will aid designers in the sizing of wires for inductor and
transformer designs. Terms such as skin depth, penetration ratio, skin-effect resistance, skin-
depth frequency, and resistance factor are defined and discussed. This section concludes by
discussing the effects of wire bundling, in particular how the size of the wire strands in the
bundle influences skin effect.
What you’ll learn:
- How to understand the mechanisms underlying eddy current losses in transformers and coupled inductors
- How to understand the origins of skin effect in transformers and coupled inductors
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