Impact of Power Density Maximization on Efficiency of DC-DC Converter Systems

The demand for decreasing costs and volume leads to a constantly increasing power density of industrial converter systems. In order to improve the power density, further different aspects, like thermal management and electromagnetic effects, must be considered in conjunction with the electrical design. Therefore, a comprehensive optimization procedure based on analytical models for minimizing volume of dc-dc converter systems has been developed at the Power Electronic Systems Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). Based on this procedure, three converter topologies-a phase-shift converter with current doubler and with capacitive output filter and a series-parallel resonant converter-are optimized with respect to power density for a telecom supply (400 V/48 V). There, the characteristic of the power density, the efficiency, and the volume distribution between the components as functions of frequency are discussed. For the operating points with maximal power density, the loss distribution is also presented. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the optimum with respect to junction temperature, cooling, and core material is investigated. The highest power density is achieved by the series-parallel resonant converter. For a 5-kW supply, a density of approximately 12 kWAL and a switching frequency of ca. 130 kHz are obtained.