Soft Magnetic Materials

Fraunhofer IFAM supports companies in the development of tailored soft magnetic components. Based on your application requirements, we benchmark available material concepts and manufacturing technologies, identify the optimal solution and manufacture functional prototypes.

✔ Benchmarking existing technologies

✔ Materials selection

✔ Design optimization

✔ Prototyping

✔ Magnetic characterization

✔ Scalability assessment

Characterization and Benchmarking 

Which manufacturing technology best meets your application requirements?

We compare various soft magnetic components based on the following criteria:

• Losses at relevant frequencies
• Magnetic induction
• Permeability
• Component size
• Manufacturing costs
• Prototyping options

Our benchmarking enables objective technology selection based on magnetic performance, manufacturability and cost. We work together to develop the most suitable solution.
 

Comprehensive magnetic characterization is available for materials and components, including:

• Measurement of B-H curves of strips, toroids and components up to 1 MHz 
• Validation under application-relevant operating conditions (elevated temperatures up to 700 °C and special excitation conditions)

Three complementary manufacturing technologies

Soft magnetic components by powder metallurgical manufacturing processes have been developed have been developed at Fraunhofer IFAM for demanding application requirements. They open up new possibilities beyond established manufacturing routes. Ultra-thin electrical steel sheets can be produced using additive screen printing. Nanocrystalline ribbons can be compacted into three-dimensional components via field-assisted sintering (FAST/SPS) and soft magnetic composites (SMC) can be formed into complex geometries through pressing and targeted post-processing.

Dr Inge Lindemann’s team focuses on the development and manufacture of prototypes of soft magnetic components using innovative manufacturing technologies, as well as their application-oriented comparison with established solutions and the current state of the art.

Within the ‘Powder Metallurgy’ department, the focus is on the correlation of starting materials and processing with structure and functional properties. Target applications cover electrical machines, power electronics and modern energy conversion systems.