A 25kW Silicon Carbide 3kV/540V Series-Resonant Converter for Electric Aircraft Systems

Abstract

In this work, a 25 kW all silicon carbide (SiC) series-resonant converter (SRC) design is proposed to enable a single stage dc to dc conversion from 3kV to 540V (±270V) for future electric aircraft applications. The proposed SRC consists of a 3-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) converter using 3.3kV discrete SiC MOSFETs on the primary side, a H-bridge converter using 900V SiC MOSFET modules on the secondary side and a high frequency (HF) transformer. The detailed design methods for the SRC power stage and the HF transformer are presented. Especially, a tradeoff between the complexity for the cooling system and the need for power density is addressed in the transformer design, leading to a novel multi-layer winding layout. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed SRC design, a converter prototype has been developed and comprehensive experimental studies are performed.