Design and Optimization of an Integrated Resonant Inductor With High-Frequency Transformer for Wide Gain Range DC–DC Resonant Converters in Electric Vehicle Charging Applications

Abstract

Large-scale adoption of wide band gap semiconductors in switched mode power converters enables miniaturization of power electronic systems. With switching frequencies approaching a few hundred kilohertz - megahertz range, efficient and compact design of magnetic components are crucial for future generation power supplies in data centers or electric vehicle (EV) applications. In a typical two-stage AC-DC power supply, the DC-DC stage is often constructed using a resonant converter with galvanic isolation provided by a high-frequency transformer. In such systems, the integration of an inductor in the resonant network with the transformer helps improve power density and reduces component count and cost. However, the integration of magnetic components can result in increased losses, deteriorating the performance of the power conversion system. In this paper, a magnetic structure along with an optimization methodology is presented to integrate a predefined resonant inductor as leakage inductance of the high-frequency transformer achieving minimum penalty on converter efficiency using planar core geometry and printed circuit board (PCB) based windings. The proposed methodology is applied to integrate a <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$7.8 \mu \rm{H}$</tex-math></inline-formula> inductor with a 2:1 transformer for a 6.6 kW, 500 kHz LCL-T resonant DC-DC stage utilizing GaN transistors in an onboard battery charging converter. On the prototype converter using the optimized integrated magnetic component, a peak efficiency of 98.4% was obtained using PCB windings. Furthermore, the integrated magnetic component achieved 64 kW/L power density in the demonstrator prototype.