Due to the concerns regarding increasing fuel cost and air pollution, plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are drawing more and more attention. PEVs have a rechargeable battery that can be restored to full charge by plugging to an external electrical source. However, the commercialization of the PEV is impeded by the demands of a lightweight, compact, yet efficient on-board charger system. Since the state-of-the-art Level 2 on-board charger products are largely silicon (Si)-based, they operate at less than 100 kHz switching frequency, resulting in a low power density at 3-12 W/in3, as well as an efficiency no more than 92 - 94%
Advanced power semiconductor devices have consistently proven to be a major force in pushing the progressive development of power conversion technology. The emerging wide bandgap (WBG) material based power semiconductor devices are considered as game changing devices which can exceed the limit of Si and be used to pursue groundbreaking high frequency, high efficiency, and high power density power conversion.
Using wide bandgap devices, a novel two-stage on-board charger system architecture is proposed at first. The first stage, employing an interleaved bridgeless totem-pole AC/DC in critical conduction mode (CRM) to realize zero voltage switching (ZVS), is operated at over 300 kHz. A bi-directional CLLC resonant converter operating at 500 kHz is chosen for the second stage. Instead of using the conventional fixed 400 V DC-link voltage, a variable DC-link voltage concept is proposed to improve the efficiency within the entire battery voltage range. 1.2 kV SiC devices are adopted for the AC/DC stage and the primary side of DC/DC stage while 650 V GaN devices are used for the secondary side of the DC/DC stage. In addition, a two-stage combined control strategy is adopted to eliminate the double line frequency ripple generated by the AC/DC stage.
The much higher operating frequency of wide bandgap devices also provides us the opportunity to use PCB winding based magnetics due to the reduced voltage-second. Compared with conventional litz-wire based transformer. The manufacture process is greatly simplified and the parasitic is much easier to control. In addition, the resonant inductors are integrated into the PCB transformer so that the total number of magnetic components is reduced. A transformer loss model based on finite element analysis is built and used to optimize the transformer loss and volume to get the best performance under high frequency operation.
Due to the larger inter-winding capacitor of PCB winding transformer, common mode noise becomes a severe issue. A symmetrical resonant converter structure as well as a symmetrical transformer structure is proposed. By utilizing the two transformer cells, the common mode current is cancelled within the transformers and the total system common mode noise can be suppressed.
In order to charge the battery faster, the single-phase on-board charger concept is extended to a higher power level. By using the three-phase interleaved CLLC resonant converter, the charging power is pushed to 12.5 kW. In addition, the integrated PCB winding transformer in single phase is also extended to the three phase. Due to the interleaving between each phase, further integration is achieved and the transformer size is further reduced. / PHD / Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are drawing more and more attention due to the advantages of energy saving, low CO₂ emission and cost effective in the long run. The power source of PEVs is a high voltage DC rechargeable battery that can be restored to full charge by plugging to an external electrical source, during which the battery charger plays an essential role by converting the grid AC voltage to the required battery DC voltage.
Silicon based power semiconductor devices have been dominating the market over the past several decades and achieved numerous outstanding performances. As they almost reach their theatrical limit, the progress to purse the high-efficiency, high-density and high-reliability power conversion also slows down. On this avenue, the emerging wide bandgap (WBG) material based power semiconductor devices are envisioned as the game changer: they can help increase the switching frequency by a factor of ten compared with their silicon counterparts while keeping the same efficiency, resulting in a small size, lightweight yet high efficiency power converter.
With WBG devices, magnetics benefit the most from the high switching frequency. Higher switching speed means less energy to store during one switching cycle. Consequently, the size of the magnetic component can be greatly reduced. In addition, the reduced number of turns provides the opportunity to adopt print circuit board as windings. Compared with the conventional litz-wire based magnetics, planar magnetics not only can effectively reduce the converter size, but also offer improved reliability through automated manufacturing process with repeatable parasitics.
This dissertation is dedicated to address the key high-frequency oriented challenges of adopting WBG devices (including both SiC and GaN) and integrated PCB winding magnetics in the battery charger applications.
First, a novel two-stage on-board charger system architecture is proposed. The first stage employs an interleaved bridgeless totem-pole AC/DC with zero voltage switching, and a bi-directional CLLC resonant converter is chosen for the second stage.
Second, a PCB winding based transformer with integrated resonant inductors is designed, so that the total number of magnetic components is reduced and the manufacturability is greatly improved. A transformer loss model based on finite element analysis is built and employed to optimize the transformer loss and volume to get the best performance under high frequency operations.
In addition, a symmetrical resonant converter structure as well as a symmetrical transformer structure is proposed to solve the common noise issue brought by the large parasitic capacitance in PCB winding magnetics. By utilizing the two transformer cells, the common mode current is cancelled within the transformers, and the total system common mode noise can be suppressed.
Finally, the single-phase on-board charger concept is extended to a higher power level to charge the battery faster. By utilizing the three-phase interleaved CLLC resonant converter as DC/DC stage, the charging power is pushed to 12.5 kW. In addition, the integrated PCB winding magnetic in single phase is also extended to the three phase. Due to the interleaving between the three phase, further integration is achieved and the transformer size is further reduced.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/97874 |
| Date | 29 October 2018 |
| Creators | Li, Bin |
| Contributors | Electrical Engineering, Li, Qiang, Burgos, Rolando, Centeno, Virgilio A., Southward, Steve C., Lee, Fred C. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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