Abstract
This paper presents a novel circuit topology of a DC bus line series switch and parallel snubbing capacitor-assisted soft-switching PWM full-bridge inverter type DC-DC power converter with a high frequency planar transformer link, which is newly developed for high performance arc welding machines in industry. The proposed DC-DC power converter circuit is based upon a voltage source-fed H type full-bridge soft-switching PWM inverter with a high frequency transformer. This DC-DC power converter has a single power semiconductor switching device in series with an input DC low side rail and loss less snubbing capacitor in parallel with the inverter bridge legs. All the active power switches in the full-bridge arms and DC bus line can achieve ZCS turn-on and ZVS turn-off transition commutation. Consequently, the total switching power losses occurred at turn-off switching transition of these power semiconductor devices; IGBTs can be reduced even in higher switching frequency bands ranging from 20 kHz to 100 kHz. The switching frequency of this DC-DC power converter using IGBT power modules can be realized at 60 kHz. It is proved experimentally by power loss analysis that the more the switching frequency increases, the more the proposed DC-DC power converter can achieve a higher control response performance and size miniaturization. The practical and inherent effectiveness of the new DC-DC converter topology proposed here is actually confirmed for low voltage and large current DC-DC power supplies (32V, 300A) for TIG arc welding applications in industry.
