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This article proposes a highly efficient current-fed half-bridge resonant converter over a wide range of the output voltages. By adding a bidirectional switch across center nodes of the voltage doubler and applying corresponding switching modulation, the converter accomplishes almost zero-voltage switching at the turn-off instant under the wide output voltage variations. Moreover, the circuit experiences very little instantaneous reactive current even when the output voltage varies widely. Primary-side duty cycle fixed at 0.5 balances the voltages across the capacitors at the primary side and at the secondary side each irrespective of the output voltage variation; it also limits the voltage stress at the active power components. Therefore, the proposed converter delivers high efficiency and compact component size. We fabricated a 400-W experimental prototype to validate the superior properties of the proposed converter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details the design and implementation of an efficient 4-kW bidirectional converter with a wide load range, based on a three-phase LCC resonant converter operated in a continuous conduction model, which has a number of advantages pertaining to a bidirectional power supply. The voltage boost-up function yields a high voltage gain without increasing the transformer turn ratio. The high switching frequency, which is achievable by using the soft-switching condition and multiphase operation, decreases the output ripple and helps minimize the size of the output filter, as the requirement for a filter changes after the power flow. Moreover, this reduction in the size of the filters yields economic advantages. In addition, because of the synchronous rectifier operation employed during switching, the conduction loss in the rectifier diode of the proposed converter is low. The direction of the output power can be changed easily, using phase control. The implemented power converter is connected to a 320-V rated generator on one side and 28-V lead-acid batteries on the other side. The functionality of the proposed converter is verified in experiments. We confirmed the high performance of the developed converter in terms of efficiency (92.2%), operable load range (0–12.5 A in step-up, and 0–142 A in step-down), and voltage ripple (0.05%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]