About the possibility of defining a standard method for iron loss measurement in soft magnetic materials with inverter supply

Due to the increase of electromagnetic and electromechanical devices supplied by static converters, the classification and evaluation of energetic behaviour of soft magnetic materials, with nonsinusoidal supply, is becoming mandatory. In this paper the possibility of defining a standard methodology for the specific iron loss measurement (iron losses per mass unity), with static supply, is analyzed. In particular the paper underlines the main problems which can be found when standard magnetic measurements are carried out with nonsinusoidal sources. Since PWM inverters represent an industrial standard solution as supply source, the problem is analyzed using common magnetic materials and taking into account the effects due to the inverter characteristics, as an example modulation index, switching frequency, modulation technique. In addition in the paper a basic structure of a standard test bench is proposed, also taking into consideration the required instrumentation.