Comparison of 30KW DC/DC converter topologies interfaces for fuel cell in hybrid electric vehicle

This paper deals with a hybrid electric vehicle power supply system composed of a fuel cell as primary source and a supercapacitors module as an intermediate energy storage system. Due to low supercapacitors and Fuel Cell voltages and due to voltage level regulation, converters are necessary to interface the fuel cell and the supercapacitors module to the power-train of the electric vehicle. Three DC/DC converter topologies are considered in this paper: Conventional step-up DC/DC converter, Interleaved multi-channel step-up DC/DC converter and Full-Bridge step-up DC/DC converter. Simulations of three converters based on each topology are carried-out with 30 KW as maximum power. The aim of this work is to have a comparative study which takes into account the weight, volume, current and voltage ripples, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and the efficiency of each converter in order to select the most suitable topology for fuel cell electric vehicle application. It is shown that the interleaving technique has the advantage of lightweight and compact size, high efficiency, small voltage and current ripples which is very beneficial for fuel cells lifetime.