Half-Bridge Zero Voltage Switching Converter with Three Resonant Tanks

Abstract

This paper presents a zero voltage switching (ZVS) converter with three resonant tanks. The main advantages of the proposed converter are its ability to reduce the switching losses on the power semiconductors, decrease the current stress of the passive components at the primary side, and reduce the transformer secondary windings. Three resonant converters with the same power switches are adopted at the low voltage side to reduce the current rating on the transformer windings. Using a series-connection of the transformer secondary windings, the primary side currents of the three resonant circuits are balanced to share the load power. As a result, the size of both the transformer core and the bobbin are reduced. Based on the circuit characteristics of the resonant converter, the power switches are turned on at ZVS. The rectifier diodes can be turned off at zero current switching (ZCS) if the switching frequency is less than the series resonant frequency. Therefore, the reverse recovery losses on the rectifier diodes are overcome. Experiments with a 1.6kW prototype are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed converter.