Leakage inductance is the property of an electrical transformer that causes a winding to appear to have some inductance in series with the mutually-coupled transformer windings. This is due to imperfect coupling of the windings and creation of leakage flux which does not link with all the turns of the winding.
The leakage flux alternately stores and discharges magnetic energy with each electrical cycle and thus effectively acts as an inductor in series in each of the primary and secondary circuits.
Leakage inductance is primarily caused by the design of the core and the windings. Voltage is dropped across the leakage reactance, resulting in poorer supply regulation when the transformer is placed under load.
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