(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2006) Sharma, Rahul Rajiv; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Hongwei Gao
This thesis presents a new topology for an isolated DC-DC converter for low voltage to high voltage conversions at high power. The proposed converter is targeted for use in fuel cell powered residential power generation systems, where low voltage to high voltage conversion at high power (>5KW) and isolation between input and output are required. Conventional DC-DC converters like forward, half bridge and full bridge for such applications need to have high turn ratio in their power transformers, to enable the high voltage boosting. This high turns ratio of the transformers results in high leakage inductance which reduces the converter's efficiency and increases the difficulty in control. The proposed converter overcomes this problem by utilizing the leakage inductance for energy conversion instead of considering it as a parasite. This reduces the problems of low efficiency and difficulty of control, caused by the leakage inductance.
