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A two-phase buck–boost converter utilizing dual interleaving is presented in this article. The dual interleaving consists of an interphase transformer (IPT) that doubles the ripple frequency together with two conventional buck–boost switching arms, mitigating the inductor ripple current and aiding to increase the power density of the converter. A description of the design and selection of the power devices is presented for a 32-kW, 75-kHz dual interleaved SiC prototype with an IPT, such that a power density of 7.4 kW/kg is achieved. The operation of the circuit is verified experimentally using a prototype with 315–385 V supply range and 350-V output voltage, achieving 97.1% peak efficiency at 32 kW. The experiments reveal that the interleaved coupled currents are equalized without an active balancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An investigation is described into the optimization of multi-phase, high power, bi-directional DC-DC interleaved converters suitable for Electric Vehicle (EV) applications. Two dual-interleaved topologies were considered initially for the optimization, the main difference being the magnetic devices: either discrete inductors (DI) or an Interphase Transformer (IPT). The comparison used a comprehensive multi-objective design optimization procedure for an 80 kW case study. High performance inductors comprising a split-core structure and dual-foil windings to reduce losses, and a 180 °C core, enabled the DI to be competitive with IPT in terms of power density and efficiency. The optimized designs are validated experimentally with an 80 kW bi-directional SiC DC-DC converter, achieving a power density of 31.4 kW/L and specific power of 15.7 kW/kg. The study is then extended to 100-kW three and four-phase interleaved topologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A split-core technique is proposed to mitigate the gap losses in high-frequency nanocrystalline cores, which enables significant size reductions in thermally limited designs. Finite element analysis is used to examine the gap loss dependence on core width D revealing a nonlinear relationship of the form loss ∝ $D^{\alpha }$. α is approximately constant for frequencies of 10–200 kHz over the range of core widths typically used in power electronics, but α increases with gap length. Splitting the core into a number of subcores can therefore provide significant reductions in gap loss, especially with larger gap lengths. The results from a 300-A (peak), 200-A (continuous) inductor show that with three subcores and a gap length of 4 mm, the gap losses are reduced by 50%, and the hot-spot temperature is reduced by 24.5 °C. Using the technique it is estimated that the original inductor weight could be reduced by 40% with four split cores, making a significant impact on converter power density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of wide-bandgap devices, e.g., silicon carbide (SiC), has the potential to enable very high-density power converter design with high-switching frequency operation capability. A comprehensive design tool with a holistic design approach is critical to maximize the overall system power density, e.g, by identifying the optimal switching frequency. This paper presents a system level design tool that optimizes the power density (volume or mass) of a three-phase, two-level dc–ac converter. The design tool optimizes the selection of the devices, heatsink and passive components (including the design of the line, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and dc-link filters) to maximize the power density. The structure of the optimization algorithm has been organized to reduce the number of potential design combinations by over 99%, and thus, produces fast simulation times. The design tool predicts that when SiC devices are used instead of Si ones, the power density is increased by 159.4%. A 5 kW, 600-V dc-link, three-phase, two-level dc–ac converter was experimentally evaluated in order to confirm the accuracy of the design tool. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Energy-based optimisation of graphene additives for supercapacitor electrodes. • Operating voltage window increased to 3.2 V. • Energy density of optimised cells is double that of symmetric, non-graphene cells. We present a new strategy to optimise the energy density of supercapacitor cells, by systematically varying the amount of graphene-related additive, while mass balancing the positive and negative electrodes. The capacitance and the electrochemically stable potential window of the electrodes have been determined for several electrodes with different additive loadings by using a recently reported electrode optimisation technique. These key factors for calculating the mass balance were obtained based on the constant current charge/discharge cycling with a coin-cell-incorporated quasi-reference electrode. Then, multi-pairing of electrodes is proposed based on the maximum theoretical energy density, and optimised supercapacitor cells have been assembled. Using this strategy, these cells are shown to reach a voltage of 3.2 V within stability conditions, providing an energy density of 37.9 W h kg−1 (double the value for a symmetric non-graphene cell) and a power density of 149 kW kg−1 at 2 A g−1, using 1 M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate (TEABF 4) in acetonitrile as the electrolyte, placing these cells in between traditional and hybrid supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]