Design and Analysis of Reconfigurable Resonant Converter With Ultrawide Output Voltage Range

Abstract

In this paper, a new reconfigurable isolated dc/dc converter is presented for a very wide output voltage range of 180-1500V for efficient onshore charging in maritime applications. The proposed circuit concept can also fulfill the stringent requirements of other heavy-duty battery charger applications, i.e., for buses, trucks, tractors, cars, etc. The circuit topology consists of two interleaved LLC resonant converters each connected to a three-winding transformer. Through the use of additional circuitry, the topology can be adapted to operate at peak efficiency in three output voltage ranges. Furthermore, the topology is able to alleviate the current and voltage stresses on the semiconductor devices in comparison to the conventional widely employed LLC resonant converter. The operation of the circuit is explained and its steady-state model is developed. In order to validate the performance of the converter, an 11kW prototype is designed, tested, and analyzed. The experimental results attest that the proposed reconfigurable resonant converter (RRC) is able to achieve the widest output voltage range for resonant power converters reported in the literature while keeping a relatively high power transfer efficiency.