**6. Magnetic Components Design Process**

In general, the design process of a magnetic component consists of four steps: design, simulate, implement, and evaluate Figure 8.

**Figure 8.** Steps to design a magnetic component. Source: Adapted from [138].

The design step can completely follow the diagram shown in Figure 8, where the application specifications will determine the selection core material up to the copper losses, the core losses model, and the high-frequency effects according to [139,140].

It is worth to mention, that there are some intermediate steps, which are related to core physical and magnetic parameters such as the cross section of the core, section of the core, length of it, effective relative permeability, peak to peak density ripple, among others [141]. In the same way, choosing a gapped core (a core with a concentrated air gap) instead of a distributed air gap core will impact its behavior and parameters to calculate; for the first one, gap parameters as length are a priority. For the second one, permeability parameters will be taken into account [142].

As applications specifications as selection core material are fundamental to select or design a core losses model, both will establish the minimum parameters to calculate power losses.

The simulate step is the masterpiece to validate the magnetic component designed, but at the same time, it will be a problematic step if the designer is not careful; FEM software always will give a solution but does not mean that it is correct. In a general way, simulation steps can be subdivided into three parts: data analysis, finite element method, and simulation of applications.

From the design steps depending on the models selected to calculate power losses, core physical parameters, and data related to the windings, many formulas are involved, and sometimes some depend on others; software such as Mathcad® and Matlab® are of great help in these cases. FEM is a big world, as it was explained in the section before. Once the magnetic component's design is complete (windings and core parameters) and validated in FEM; the next step consists in exporting the final FEM design to software like

Simulink® or Twin Builder®, PSIM®, to simulate it in a specific application and corroborate its correct performance [59,143–146].

The implementation step tests the simulated application through the interconnection of different sorts of software and platforms (MCU hardware, LabVIEW®, Typhoon HIL, among others) to simulate it with high fidelity, in similar conditions to real [147]. Typhoon HIL is a feasible example of this, as it can see in Figure 8. The reader interested in magnetic component testing is referred to [148–153] and the references therein.

The last one is to evaluate, that is, physically build the magnetic component designed and tested in the steps before and implement it in a circuit. Technically speaking, the tests obtained in the implementation step must coincide with the physical circuit measurements with a minimal error percentage. If the magnetic component behavior is not satisfactory, the steps must be repeated, modifying the necessary parameters until the desired results are obtained.
