AC Resistance of Copper Clad Aluminum Wires

摘要

Recently, wireless power transfer has attracted much attention for power supplying on not only small electric devices but also large equipments such as electric and hybrid vehicles. Coils are important components in such power transfer systems and their AC resistance is a key factor to determine the transferring efficiency. The AC resistance of wires used in the coils is required to be as lower as possible for high efficiency systems. Copper clad aluminum (CCA) wire which has an aluminum (Al) core surrounded by a thin copper (Cu) layer has been proposed for this purpose. CCA wires are not only light-weight and easy for soldering but also show lower AC resistance than commonly used Cu wires on certain conditions. In this paper, the AC resistance caused by the skin and proximity effects of a CCA wire with circular cross-section is numerically analyzed. The condition that CCA wires are superior to Cu wires in view of AC resistance is discussed. Simulated results are compared with experiments on fabricated coils and good agreement is obtained. It is actually verified that coils wound by CCA wires have lower AC resistance than those by Cu wires under some circumstances, especially at high frequencies.