Hi all,
I happen to find that inductors used in solar power converters (that I have come across) are predominantly gapped-amorphous core based ones. Is there any particular reason not to have chosen distributed airgap reactors for such applications, say with kool-mu core? I know distributed air-gap design has several advantages over gapped-design.I am mentioning kool-mu material since I reckon it has more or less similar high-frequency power loss density characteristics as amorphous although saturation flux density is lower. In other words, does gapped design have any specfic advantage over distributed air-gap design?
Any thoughts?

efficiency is probably the main reason and then tied equal size and linearity.

I have one question. There are some powder core materials such as MPP, that are much less lossy when compared to Amorphous. And gapped inductors may lead to additional losses in windings due to fringing. Of course this depends on the air-gap length. So the thing that eludes me is that how is it more efficient?

I have never used MPP (always out of my price range!) but are you sure it is lower loss even when pushing flux densities high which is what you probably need to do in order to keep the size sensible?

Talking of gapping toroidal ferrites, Ferroxcube have a small range of parts but annoyingly you can't tell where the (single) gap is as it is filled and then the usual coating covers it up.

No I have not personally worked on MPP. I brought it up based on a result presented by a vendor.
But I completely agree that this is liable for skepticism as one can always project a result rendering something superior over the others.
Does anyone who has practically used MPP and amorphous has any take on this?

Most likely cost, lead time and availability dominated the design choice...