josephkk said:
Concept check. How can there be magnetizing losses without a core to be
magnetized?
Well, I suppose eddy currents in the windings will be lossy, and count as
magnetizing (i.e., acts like a parallel impedance).
If you stretch the scope to include the system (so, the transformer and
its driver), whatever handles the reactive current (capacitor or inverter)
will also have some losses, and one could define "magnetizing losses" as
that which is a direct result of the magnetizing current, and wouldn't
have existed if the winding had very high inductance, as with a core.
Example: single transistor forward converter. When the switch is on, flux
is stored in the transformer (while the load current is doing its thing).
When the switch turns off, a source of restoring flux is required.
Usually, the transformer's self inductance provides this; the flyback
pulse is clamped, and the energy either dissipated (RCD peak snubber) or
recycled (CT primary, one side switch, other side diode). Now consider
what happens as the transformer's self inductance is dropped: load current
remains constant, but magnetizing current rises, which puts more current
into the flyback pulse. Flux is still conserved, but reactive power is
much higher. You can see, if the inductance is so low that more
magnetizing current is drawn than load current, the switch and diode must
be beefed up significantly, and losses rise accordingly. It would be fair
to attribute these losses to magnetizing, as long as one emphasizes that
it's a system measure, not the transformer alone.
Tim