3boost a high power three-phase step-up full-bridge converter for automotive applications

This paper presents a simple and original DC/DC step-up converter topology for switch-mode DC power supplies. The proposed architecture is well suited for high power applications with battery supply. A prototype was realized and tested for the power supply of automotive devices. In this environment signals are characterized by high dynamic variations, thus they can be operated only relying on power supplies with high dynamic capabilities. The latter constraint can be achieved only using closed-loop switch-mode DC/DC converters at high switching frequency. So doing converter efficiency is reduced, and EMC problems arise. In summary power supply efficiency and supply voltage quality are key features of the converter design. In this paper the above mentioned issued were tackled relying on an open loop topology. The original solution is the adoption of a three-phase transformer with delta-wye connection within a full-bridge converter topology. The proposed architecture will be referred to as 3boost power supply. The three-phase transformer replaces the common single-phase transformer and it is supplied at primary by three square waves, produced by a three-phase full bridge inverter. At secondary a three-phase full wave diode rectifier is used to obtain the output DC voltage level. Experimental results confirm that this topology, with respect to a single-phase push-pull converter, allows to achieve higher efficiency, a lower ripple factor, and a unitary transformer utilization factor. The proposed architecture is patent pending.