Soft ferrite 3D printing of magnetic couplers of inductive power transfer systems

Traditional soft ferrite manufacturing is limited to simple geometries and materials, while 3D printing offers greater flexibility for complex designs. Notably, soft ferrites are crucial for magnetic couplers (pads) in inductive power transfer (IPT) systems to achieve efficient wireless power transmission. The adoption of soft ferrite 3D printing in IPT systems could lead to significantly improved magnetic coupler design, yet research in this area is limited. Hence, the paper first makes a comprehensive comparison of the existing soft ferrite 3D printing methods to ascertain their suitability for magnetic couplers in IPT systems, and then proposes the binder jetting (BJT) as a potential 3D printing approach that could be appropriate for IPT magnetic coupler implementation being versatile, cost-effective, and suitable for large-scale manufacturing with high precision. This paper explores the suitability of BJT by 3D printing toroid cores with Mn–Zn ferrite powder under different sintering temperature profiles. Experimental results are presented to show that toroid cores can be 3D printed with high printing precision, mechanical strength, and a relative permeability of 10. This paper also highlights the impact of sintering temperature on 3D-printed cores, the challenges, limitations, and future research directions of soft ferrite 3D printing for IPT magnetic couplers by the BJT method.