Resonant Power Converters

Recently, DC/DC resonant converters have received much research interest as a result of the advancements in their applications. This increase in their industrial application has given rise to more efforts in enhancing the soft-switching, smooth waveforms, high-power density, and high efficiency features of the resonant converters. Their suitability to high frequency usage and capacity to minimize switching losses have endeared them to industrial applications compared to the hard-switching conventional converters. However, studies have continued to suggest improvements in certain areas of these converters, including high-power density, wide load variations, reliability, high efficiency, minimal number of components, and low cost. In this chapter, the resonant power converters (RPCs), their principles, and their classifications based on the DC-DC family of converters are presented. The recent advancements in the constructions, operational principles, advantages, and disadvantages were also reviewed. From the review of different topologies of the resonant DC-DC converters, it has been suggested that more studies are necessary to produce power circuits, which can address the drawbacks of the existing one

A ring-connected dual active bridge based DC-DC multiport converter for EV fast-charging stations

This paper proposes a multiport DC-DC converter for EV fast-charging stations. The proposed converter is comprised of Ring-Connected Dual Active Bridge (RCDAB) DC-DC converters, where the connection point between every two adjacent DABs provides a DC port. Bypass switches are added to each DAB to eliminate unnecessary power processing stages in the event of idle ports (no EVs) (open circuit ports). The nature of the ring connection of the RCDAB theoretically allows infinite internal power flow solutions within the ring to satisfy a certain power flow scenario at the DC ports, hence, the optimal power flow solution can be selected to minimize total RMS current and losses. Single-phase shift control is applied to this optimization problem to make it simple. A novel closed-loop control scheme using Bisection optimization is developed to minimize the total RMS current. A control-hardware-in-the-loop (CHiL) validation is carried out for a 5-port network of the proposed topology to investigate the converter efficiency and fault tolerance/availability characteristics. Also, an experimental hardware validation is implemented for a 3-port network where different scenarios for power flow and faults are performed. Finally, a comparative discussion between the proposed topology and other multiport topologies in literature is presented revealing the superior performance of the RCDAB topology

Analysis, Design and Control of a Modular Full-Si Converter Concept for Electric Vehicle Ultra-Fast Charging

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Single-Sensor DCM PFC Based Onboard Chargers for Low Voltage Electric Vehicles

Grid-connected plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are considered as one of the most sustainable solutions to substantially reduce both the oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Electric vehicles (EVs) are broadly categorized into low power EVs (48/72 V battery) and high power EVs (450/650 V battery). Low power EVs comprise two-wheelers, three-wheelers (rickshaws), golf carts, intra-logistics equipment and short-range EVs whereas high power EVs consist of passenger cars, trucks and electric buses. Charger, which is a power electronic converter, is an important component of EV infrastructures. These chargers consist of power converters to convert AC voltage (grid) to constant DC voltage (battery). The existing chargers are bulky, have high components’ count, complex control system and poor input power quality. Henceforth, to overcome these drawbacks, this thesis focuses on the onboard charging solutions (two-stage isolated and single-stage non-isolated) for the low voltage battery EVs. Power factor correction (PFC) is the fundamental component in the EV charger. Considering the specific boundaries of the continuous conduction mode (CCM) operation for AC-DC power conversion and their complexity, the proposed chargers are designed to operate in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and benefiting from the characteristics like built-in PFC, single sensor, simple control, easy implementation, inherent zero-current turn-on of the switches, and inherent zero diode reverse recovery losses. Proposed converters can operate for the wide input voltage range and the output voltage is controlled by a single sensor-based single voltage control loop making the control simple and easy to implement, and improves the system reliability and robustness. This thesis studies and designs both single-stage non-isolated and two-stage isolated onboard battery chargers to charge a 48 V lead-acid battery pack. At first, a non-isolated single-stage single-cell buck-boost PFC AC-DC converter is studied and analyzed that offers reduced components’ count and is cost-effective, compact in size and illustrates high efficiency. While the DCM operation ensures unity power factor (UPF) operation at AC mains without the use of input voltage and current sensors. However, they employ high current rated semiconductor devices and the use of diode bridge rectifier suffers from higher conduction losses. To overcome these issues, a new front-end bridgeless AC-DC PFC topology is proposed and analyzed. With this new bridgeless front-end topology, the conduction losses are significantly reduced resulting in improved efficiency. The low voltage stress on the semiconductor devices are observed because of the voltage doubler configuration. Later, an isolated two-stage topology is proposed. The previously proposed bridgeless buck-boost derived PFC converter is employed followed by an isolated half-bridge LLC resonant converter. Loss analysis is done to determine optimal DC-link voltage for the efficient operation of the proposed conversion. The converters' steady-state operation, DCM condition, and design equations are reported in detail. The small-signal models for all the proposed topologies using the average current injected equivalent circuit approach are developed, and detailed closed-loop controller design is illustrated. The simulation results from PSIM 11.1 software and the experimental results from proof-of-concept laboratory hardware prototypes are provided in order to validate the reported analysis, design, and performance

Highly Efficient SiC Based Onboard Chargers for Plug-in Electric Vehicles

Grid-enabled plug-in electrified vehicles (PEVs) are deemed as one of the most sustainable solutions to profoundly reduce both oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. One of the most important realities, which will facilitate the adoption of PEVs is the method by which these vehicles will be charged. This dissertation focuses on the research of highly efficient onboard charging solutions for next generation PEVs. This dissertation designs a two-stage onboard battery charger to charge a 360 V lithium-ion battery pack. An interleaved boost topology is employed in the first stage for power factor correction (PFC) and to reduce total harmonic distortion (THD). In the second stage, a full bridge inductor-inductor-capacitor (LLC) multi-resonant converter is adopted for galvanic isolation and dc/dc conversion. Design considerations focusing on reducing the charger volume, and optimizing the conversion efficiency over the wide battery pack voltage range are investigated. The designed 1 kW Silicon based charger prototype is able to charge the battery with an output voltage range of 320 V to 420 V from 110 V, 60 Hz single-phase grid. Unity power factor, low THD, and high peak conversion efficiency have been demonstrated experimentally. This dissertation proposes a new technique to track the maximum efficiency point of LLC converter over a wide battery state-of-charge range. With the proposed variable dc link control approach, dc link voltage follows the battery pack voltage. The operating point of the LLC converter is always constrained to the proximity of the primary resonant frequency, so that the circulating losses and the turning off losses are minimized. The proposed variable dc link voltage methodology, demonstrates efficiency improvement across the wide state-of-charge range. An efficiency improvement of 2.1% at the heaviest load condition and 9.1% at the lightest load condition for LLC conversion stage are demonstrated experimentally. This dissertation proposes a novel PEV charger based on single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) and the maximum efficiency point tracking technique of an LLC converter. The proposed charger architecture demonstrates attracting features such as (1) compatible with universal grid inputs; (2) able to charge the fully depleted battery pack; (3) pulse width modulation and simplified control algorithm; and (4) the advantages of Silicon Carbide MOSFETs can be fully manifested. A 3.3 kW all Silicon Carbide based PEV charger prototype is designed to validate the proposed idea

Hybrid multimodule DC-DC converters for ultrafast electric vehicle chargers

To increase the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), significant efforts in terms of reducing the charging time are required. Consequently, ultrafast charging (UFC) stations require extensive investigation, particularly considering their higher power level requirements. Accordingly, this paper introduces a hybrid multimodule DC-DC converter-based dual-active bridge (DAB) topology for EV-UFC to achieve high-efficiency and high-power density. The hybrid concept is achieved through employing two different groups of multimodule converters. The first is designed to be in charge of a high fraction of the total required power, operating at a relatively low switching frequency, while the second is designed for a small fraction of the total power, operating at a relatively high switching frequency. To support the power converter controller design, a generalized small-signal model for the hybrid converter is studied. Also, cross feedback output current sharing (CFOCS) control for the hybrid input-series output-parallel (ISOP) converters is examined to ensure uniform power-sharing and ensure the desired fraction of power handled by each multimodule group. The control scheme for a hybrid eight-module ISOP converter of 200 kW is investigated using a reflex charging scheme. The power loss analysis of the hybrid converter is provided and compared to conventional multimodule DC-DC converters. It has been shown that the presented converter can achieve both high efficiency (99.6%) and high power density (10.3 kW/L), compromising between the two other conventional converters. Simulation results are provided using the MatLab/Simulink software to elucidate the presented concept considering parameter mismatches.Qatar Foundation; Qatar National Research FundScopu

Receiver Side Control for Efficient Inductive Power Transfer for Vehicle Recharging

This thesis presents a new wireless inductive power transfer topology using half bridge current fed converter and a full bridge active single phase rectifier. Generally, the efficiency of inductive power transfer system is lower than the wired system due to higher power loss in inductive power transfer coils. The proposed converter reduces these limitations and shows more than 4% overall efficiency improvement comparing with such system in battery charging of low-voltage light-load electrical vehicles such as passenger cars, golf carts etc. This is realized by synchronous rectification technique of the vehicle side converter. Simulation results obtained from Matlab Simulink are included to validate the analysis and performance of the proposed converter. A scale-down 250 W lab prototype is developed and experimental results are presented to verify the comparative study results

Modelling and Analysis of DC-DC Converters for Bidirectional EV Charging Applications

This thesis is focused on the modelling and analysis of DC-DC converter topologies used for bidirectional charging of electric vehicles. Bidirectional converters are used in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems to allow bidirectional power transfer between the vehicle and the grid. Following the investigation in the literature review of potential converter topologies used in V2G applications and modelling techniques, this research proposes the application of the cyclic-averaging method for analysis of the Dual Active Bridge, 4th order resonant CLLC converter, and series compensated Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) converter. First, the cyclic-averaging method is applied for analysis of a phase-shift modulated Dual Active Bridge converter (DAB). For implementation of the cyclic analysis, the operation of the converter is first analysed using a Spice simulation to determine the system’s operation modes and duty cycles. The cyclic-averaging model is validated against a Spice simulation and employed to predict the converter’s output and to perform harmonic analysis of the inductor current. Following the analysis of the DAB, a 4th order CLLC converter is evaluated considering frequency and phase-shift modulations. The cyclic-averaging model is derived to model the behaviour of the converter’s output and state-variables in steady state. Additionally, a Fundamental Mode Approximation (FMA) model and a novel piecewise-linear state-variable model are also implemented for comparison. The models obtained are validated using Spice and, for the phase-shift modulated converter, experimental results. Finally, the series compensated IPT converter is analysed considering operation under phase-shift modulation. A FMA model is derived and, using circuit transformation, the state-variable and cyclic-averaging models previously defined for the CLLC converter are adapted for the analysis of the IPT converter. A prototype is built for validation of the cyclic model. Overall, for all converters analysed in this research, the cyclic-averaging method showed good performance with considerably fast execution and accuracy similar to Spice simulations