A practical design and analysis of a high power DC to DC converter

DC to DC converters are one of the most important components in power systems. The topology of the converter must be chosen depending on the power level to be converted. In this paper, a converter which is isolated by a high frequency transformer will be discussed. Although the converters are widely used and are easy to use, it is very hard to design and to operate a DC to DC converter especially at high power and voltage levels. Semiconductor switches can break down especially at high power and switching frequency levels depending on the leakage inductance of the insulating transformer as well as the saturation in the magnetic circuit. Here, the effects of leakage inductance and saturation will be re-introduced and the effects of different samples of wires and winding techniques are discussed. The design procedure of a high frequency transformer is given with a realistic way and eventually a sample full-bridge converter design for 2.5 kW and 220 V is given. Main contribution of the paper is merging different techniques together which are used to improve the performance of a seldom used high power DC to DC converter described above.