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Power Electronics Converters (PEC) play a crucial role in the operation of many modern electrical systems and devices. Despite their widespread use, the lack of an efficient and cost-effective disassembly process can limit their repairability, refurbishability, remanufacturability and, ultimately, recyclability, thus hindering the circularity of products. In order to improve their circularity, it is important to assess their ease of disassembly. Therefore, this paper investigates the applicability of the "ease of Disassembly Metric" (eDiM), which is referenced in the material efficiency standards, Benelux repairability assessment method, and Repair Scoring System (RSS), to analyze the ease of disassembly of energy-related products. After identifying the limitations of the eDiM method, we refined and adapted it to make it more suitable for Printed Circuit Board (PCB)-based PEC, and thus propose a PCB-based disassemblability assessment method allowing the implementation of quantifiable requirements supporting their circularity. This standardized approach, at the PCB level, can improve the circularity of such products by facilitating design enhancements. With this approach, policymakers and designers can contribute more effectively to the transition to a circular economy in PCB electronics, particularly in the field of power electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing more circular products is essential to reaching Sustainable Development Goal 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, which is anticipated to be achieved by 2030. To achieve progress toward a circular economy in power electronics, discarded products, modules, or components must be recovered. This requires the implementation of End-of-Life (EoL) strategies. In order to maximize the high-value circularity efficiency of a power electronic product, EoL choices and constraints should be taken into account early on in the design phase. Since disassembly is a known bottleneck in EoL practices, design to enable disassembly is essential. Modularity enhances the product's reconfigurability and disassemblability, its reuse in other product families, as well as the product's maintenance, and serviceability. So, it is anticipated that this multiple life cycle thinking enabled by modularity would contribute to the transition towards more circular power electronic designs. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to consider modular designs of power electronic converters (PECs) and categorize them. As a result of a corresponding discussion about the existing PECs, we point out the general potentials to enhance circularity by modularity applied to PECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, inductor loss models are developed based on the experimental characterization of off-the-shelf components. The modelling steps and techniques are described and validated. It is shown that the model exhibits fairly good accuracy over a large range of ripple current frequency and magnitude. Then, these models are used, as an illustration, in order to present the possible optimization process of the tradeoff between switching frequency-current ripple magnitude and output inductors value in the case of a Buck-derived converter. This optimization has shown that a large current ripple may lead to minimized losses in some cases. The developed modelling technique aims to represent Joules and iron losses, as well as DC and AC losses of inductors. It is not based on physical behaviour description but on mathematical equations based on a set of experimental characterizations. The modelling technique is not suitable for designing the component itself but is useful for selecting the best component value in the manufacturer's series of components. Since it remains difficult with the manufacturer datasheet to estimate AC losses accurately with respect to frequency and ripple current magnitude, a specific characterization is carried out to complement the available data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending electronics' lifespan is a major issue in Design for Sustainability. Power electronic components are a continuously growing part of our daily good service usages from the laptop charger (10-100 W), the home air conditioning (1-10 kW), the solar power plant (1-100 kW), to the railway electric mobility (1-100 MW). They drastically contribute to increasing the e-waste stream since device volume is proportional to power ratings. Repairing conversion systems challenges designers in the way the systems should be designed to be maintained over the years. In addition, introducing circular economy with electronic component (or subsystems) reuse supposes evaluating their residual value in case of power electronics. This paper firstly introduces from the state of the art the residual value evaluations to define the relevant parameters that should be included in the case of power electronic components, and a method to estimate this value is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power electronics converters are traditionally designed regarding efficiency, power density, cost, and reliability figures of merit. Today, with the extreme spread of power electronic applications in our modern societies, together with the earth limits in terms of materials resources, it is important to consider the ecological impact of the converter not only during its usage, but over its whole life cycle. This article introduces an eco-dimensioning methodology for analyzing and accounting for the energy consumption over the entire converter life. The analysis is applied on a small DC-DC converter considering the main components dual active bridge (DAB) converter. The planar transform is one of the key elements modeled in this article, including material and manufacturing conditions. The traditional and eco-dimensioning approaches are carried out and compared in order to emphasize the possible consequences on total energy cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with multilayer magnetic components for power electronics application and specifically for high frequency switching. New formulations based on nickel-zinc-copper spinel ferrites were developed for high power and high frequency applications. These ferrites can be sintered at low temperature (around 900°C) which makes them compatible with the LTCC (Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics) technology. Metallic parts of silver or gold can be fully integrated inside the ferrite while guaranteeing the integrity of both the ferrite and the metal. To make inductors or transformers with the required properties, it is mandatory to have nonmagnetic parts between the turns of the winding. Then it is essential to find a dielectric material, which can be co-sintered both with the ferrite and the metal. We will present the solution we found to this problem and we will describe the results we obtained for a multilayer co-sintered transformer. We will see that these new components have good performance compared with the state of the art and are very promising for developing high density switching mode power supplies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new class of converters based on the inductive input converters for the design of a power electronic interface for fuel cell (FC) applications. After studying the half-bridge structure, two soft-switching dc-dc converters are analyzed: one operating in zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) mode and the other in zero-current-switching (ZCS) mode. The ZYS converter can overcome the drawbacks of the original structure but is more complicated. The ZCS converter cannot operate at duty cycles below 0.5, but is simpler and more suitable for FC applications. Flexible choice of components, low losses, high efficiency, and modular converter possibility are all interesting characteristics of these converters. Their operation principle and characteristics are presented in this paper. Experimental results on 2 kW converters of each structure validate the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes a methodology for designing power electronic converters called "Automatic Design for Manufacturing" (ADFM). This methodology proposes creating Power Converter Arrays (PCAs) using standardized converter cells. The approach is greatly inspired by the microelectronics integrated circuit design flow, power electronics building blocks, and multicell converters. To achieve the desired voltage/current specifications, the PCA conversion stage is made from the assembly of several Conversion-Standard Cells (CSCs) in series and/or parallel. The ADFM uses data-based models to simulate the behavior of a PCA with very little computational effort. These models require a special characterization approach to maximize the amount of knowledge while minimizing the amount of data. This approach consists of establishing an experiment plan to select the relevant measurements that contain the most information about the PCA technology, building an experimental setup that is capable of acquiring data automatically and using statistical learning to train models that can yield precise predictions. This work performed over 210 h of tests in nine different PCAs in order to gather data to the statistical models. The models predict the efficiency and converter temperature of several PCAs, and the accuracy is compared with real measurements. Finally, the models are employed to compare the performance of PCAs in a specific battery charging application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]