Thermal analysis and electromagnetic characteristics of three single-sided flux pads for wireless power transfer

By employing Wireless Power Transfer (WPT), the complexities of wire utilization are eliminated in charging electric devices, especially Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs). WPT can be used in both stationary and dynamic modes to charge battery of EVs and PHEVs. There are few magnetic structures that are used as transmitter and receiver sides of WPT to improve the efficiency. A first of its kind, this paper conducted a temperature analysis for three substantial pads including Double-D Pad (DDP), Double-D Quadrature Pad (DDQP), and Bipolar Pad (BPP). For this, the electromagnetic finite element method and finite volume computational fluid dynamics were employed simultaneously. After the two-way solution of the electromagnetic and thermal energy equations, the temperature distribution in all the components of the primary and secondary pads was obtained in the aligned and misaligned positions. In doing so, the material characteristics were considered as temperature-dependent. Finally, with DDP as a transmitter; and DDP, DDQP, and BPP as receivers, prototyping was conducted to verify the analytical results, and to validate that the procedure employed in this study is capable of being applied to conventional and innovative types of WPT magnetic structures. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.