An active clamping current-fed half-bridge converter for fuel-cell generation systems

Abstract

In this paper, a new active clamping current-fed half-bridge converter has been proposed, which is suitable for fuel cell based power generation systems. The proposed converter has outstanding advantages over the conventional dc-dc converters with respect to high efficiency, high power density, and high component utilization. In special, the proposed converter has predominant high boosting output voltage and high efficiency characteristics under the inherently severe low output voltage of the fuel cell through the overall load conditions. Moreover, the developed converter has been experimentally tested with the help of a fuel cell simulator, which is developed by Sungkyunkwan Univ. and can generate the V-I characteristics of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), so that the performance of the proposed converter could be effectively examined and the validity of the converter could be verified.