A coupled-inductor DC-DC converter with input current ripple minimization for fuel cell vehicles

Abstract

A coupled-inductor DC-DC converter with a high voltage gain is proposed in this paper to match the voltage of a fuel cell stack to a DC link bus. The proposed converter can minimize current ripples and can also achieve a high voltage gain by adjusting the duty cycle d and the turns ratio n of a coupled inductor. A passive lossless clamping circuit that is composed of one capacitor and one diode is employed, and this suppresses voltage spikes across the power device resulting from system leakage inductance. The operating principles and the characteristics of the proposed converter are analyzed and discussed. A 400-W experimental prototype was developed, and it had a wide voltage gain range (4–13.33) and a maximum efficiency of 95.12%.