Analysis of magnetic materials and the design of EI-core arm inductor for MV-AFE MMC application using Multi-objective optimization

The Modular Multi-Level Converter (MMC) is a popular topology for HVDC or MVDC microgrids which require 6 (2 per phase) arm inductors for each system which are significant in size. Therefore characterizing different magnetic materials for a MV inductor design process is very important for power density. Many variables must be analyzed before expensive MV inductors are manufactured. Inductor design is a multi-objective optimization problem that is tackled by using an evolutionary algorithm to solve this is shown in this paper. Loss, Mass, and volume are optimized using a genetic algorithm for a 2mH, 297 A(rms) MMC arm inductor with an E-I core structure.