New high-frequency linked half-bridge soft-switching PWM DC-DC converter with input DC rail side active edge resonant snubbers

This study presents a new circuit topology of the active edge resonant snubber-assisted half-bridge soft-switching PWM inverter-type DC-DC high-power converter for DC bus feeding power plants. The proposed DC-DC power converter is composed of a typical voltage source-fed half-bridge high-frequency PWM inverter with a high-frequency planar transformer link in addition to input DC busline side power semi-conductor switching devices for the PWM control scheme and parallel capacitive lossless snubbers. The operating principle of the new DC-DC converter treated here is described by using switching mode equivalent circuits, together with its unique features. All the active power switches in the half-bridge arms and input DC buslines can achieve zero current switching (ZCS) turn-on and zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-off commutation transitions. The total turn-off switching losses of the power switches can be significantly reduced. As a result, a high-switching-frequency isolated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) can be actually selected in the frequency range of 60 kHz under the principle of soft switching. The performance evaluations of the experimental setup are illustrated practically. The effectiveness of the new converter topology is proved for low-voltage and large-current DC-DC power supplies as DC bus feeding from a practical point of view.