Design and development of isolated snubber based bidirectional DC–DC converter for electric vehicle applications

Abstract

Particularly, in the classical dual-active-bridge (DAB) converter, the current difference between the source and leakage inductance of high-frequency transformer potentially results in circulating current. This circulating current further causes the increased voltage stress, voltage overshoots, and conduction losses in the circuit. In view of this, a combination of dualswitch-forward (DSF) snubber and pre-charging method assisted isolated bi-directional DC-DC (BDC) converter is described in this study for electric vehicle application. The proposed configuration effectively diminishes the adverse impact of circulating current while reducing conduction loss, as well as switching stress. The working principle and corresponding circuit configurations are extensively discussed during both modes of operation. The control-to-output transfer functions have been obtained, and it has been confirmed that the system is stable for both modes of operation. The experimental prototype of 480 W for 20 kHz application has been developed using DSP TMS320F28335 to verify the practicality of the proposed converter. The experimental results assure that the voltage spike is successfully alleviated when the converter is operated with the proposed configuration. Finally, the comparative loss analysis has been carried out, which determines that the DSF snubber circuit with pre-charging method provides a better solution compared to classical converters/techniques.

A Robust MPPT Control Based on Double Ended Forward Converter Architecture

“…Coupled inductors are integrated with an intermediate capacitor and voltage multiplier to attain high voltage gain [23]. A variable inductance based buck converter is proposed for micro-grids having a wide range of voltage operation and higher efficiency [24]. The primary disadvantage of this converter is high voltage stresses across switching devices and high ripples.…”

Implementation of Snubber Circuits in a PV-Based Off-Grid Electric Vehicle Charging Station—Comparative Case Studies

“…Another type of snubber is a flyback snubber in which the voltage spike across the switches gets clamped by a capacitor-diode circuit and is recovered. This snubber also provides an effective solution to reduce the circulating current across the BDC switches [6].…”

“…The implementation and benefits of snubber based BDCs in EVs were reported in the recent past [6,7]. However, there are negligible data on the use of snubber based BDCs for use in off-grid charging stations for EVs.…”

“…Hence, in this paper, RCD, active clamp, and flyback snubbers for the BDC in terms of the overall performance off-grid charging station for EVs are compared. Such a study was carried out on the BDCs in EVs which operate at low-voltage levels only [6,7]. However, there have been no reported results on either off-grid or grid-connected charging stations for EVs.…”

Modelling and control of a triple‐active‐bridge converter

“…The TAB converter is first introduced in [10] for the energy storage application, and later, the basic controls are developed in [11, 12]. On the one hand, as a topological extension to the DAB converter [13, 14], the TAB and DAB converters share the similar features: wide voltage gain, bidirectional power flow, and control flexibility. However, the range of zero‐voltage‐switching (ZVS) operation is a concern for the TAB converter, which will be addressed in this paper.…”