Magnetic Integration in High-Frequency-Isolated AC-AC Interleaved Converters

Magnetic integration is of major interest for practical applications involving distinct power converter topologies, aiming at minimizing cost, dimensions, and losses, as well as increasing power density. These aspects are quite important in the context of high-frequency-isolated ac-ac converter topologies, some of which have great potential for applications involving solid-state transformers (SSTs). This work introduces a magnetic integration approach to reduce the number of individual cores required by an isolated symmetrical full-bridge converter (SFBC). This structure is based on the dual active bridge (DAB) converter and may comprise up to six magnetic elements. Applying the derived design methodology based on the gyrator concept, only two cores will be required instead, resulting in reduced dimensions. A thorough theoretical analysis is presented, from which it is possible to implement a laboratory prototype of the SFBC using integrated magnetics. The results clearly show that the proposed solution leads to improved performance in terms of lower component count and volume, as well as higher efficiency when compared with the counterpart that uses individual elements.