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What about 4A current passes an inductor with 2.4A rated current?

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tony_lth

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ALL,
In a circuit, using an inductor we-744772560, which has 2.4A rated current and 3A saturated current.
I am curious about if 4A current passes the inductor, what will happen?
Will the inductor core be burnt?
Cheers,
Tony Liu
 

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The datasheet says 2 A rated current (40 K temperature rise). It's easy to estimate the temperature rise at 4A DC, it's at least 160 K, more likely 220 K due to positive copper TC. Definitely above any enameled wire ratings. Only open question is how low the saturated inductance at 4 A exactly is.
 
The inductor's saturation is 3 amps.
At 4 amps the inductance may have dropped so low that it will be useless as an inductor.

This in addition to the wire overheating.
 
As said, beyond saturation inductance drops (thats how saturation is defined actually). Look at your own datasheet and and you can see the curve. By 3A inductance has already dropped about 40%. Extrapolate from there and you'll see that at 4A inductance will be very low.

Saturation won't heat up the core by itself (ripple current heats up the core) but resistive losses will.

If you're wondering about a short transient event typically inductors are tolerant of that as long as they don't overheat. There are also other types of inductors with "softer" saturation curves than the one you linked which will retain more inductance past their saturation points.
 
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