Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

1 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Northern Research Center for Science & Technology, Malek Ashtar University of Technology, Fereydunkenar, Iran

Abstract

This paper presents a new comprehensive study on multi-phase interleaved DC-DC boost converters for fuel cell power interface. High power density DC-DC converters are usually required due to the volumetric and gravimetric constraints in the various fuel cell power system applications. On the other hand, in sensitive applications such as vehicular systems, using a reliable converter is a critical feature. Therefore, different multi-phase configurations with various phase numbers are investigated to find the configuration with the highest power density and reliability. Boost converters with single, two, and four-phase configurations are designed with considerably low input current and output voltage ripples compatible with the fuel cell application. Their performance parameters (especially their power densities) are investigated using the analytical and simulation results. To discuss their reliability, a reliability analysis based on a mathematical model and Markov diagram is employed to calculate the converters’ expected load loss values. In the end, among the considered configurations, the two-phase boost converter is selected to be used in fuel cell applications due to its superior performance in terms of power density and reliability. The selected boost configuration is implemented to extract the experimental results and verify the accuracy of the calculation and simulation results.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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