• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2012

In this paper, voltage clamped tapped-inductor boost converter with high voltage conversion ratio is proposed. The conventional tapped-inductor boost converter has a serious drawback such as high voltage stresses across all power semiconductors due to the high resonant voltage caused by the leakage inductor of tapped inductor. Therefore, the dissipative snubber is essential for absorbing this resonant voltage, which could degrade the overall power conversion efficiency. To overcome these drawbacks, the proposed converter employs a voltage clamping capacitor instead of the dissipative snubber. Therefore, the voltage stresses of all power semiconductors are not only clamped as the output voltage but the power conversion efficiency can also be considerably improved. Moreover, since the energy stored in the clamp capacitor is transferred to the output side together with the input energy, the proposed converter can achieve the higher voltage conversion ratio than the conventional tapped-inductor boost converter. Therefore, the proposed converter is expected to be well suited to various applications demanding the high efficiency and high voltage conversion ratio. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, the theoretical analysis and experimental results of the proposed converter are presented.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.349-356
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• 2014

As the turns ratio of the tapped-inductor contributes to the step-up ratio, the tapped-inductor boost (TIB) converter has significantly increased level of difficulties in its analysis and design compared to the conventional boost converter where the duty ratio is the sole factor affecting the step-up ratio. In this paper, the operation of the continuous current mode TIB converter is briefly reviewed, the characteristics are analyzed in detail, and a design guideline optimizing the loss in the tapped-inductor is presented with a practical design example. Finally, experimental results from a 12V/120V prototype for 0.25A LED driver application are also presented to confirm the design.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.199-205
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• 2002

This paper compares three kinds of soft-switching circuits from viewpoints of surge suppression, load characteristic, and power efficiency for a tapped-inductor buck converter with low voltage and high current. As a result, these soft-switching techniques have achieved much higher efficiency of 80 % when compared with a hard-switching buck converter for the output condition of 1V and 20A.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.636-646
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• 2013

A single-phase tapped-inductor boost converter has been proposed previously. However, detailed characterization and performance analysis were not conducted. This paper presents a detailed characterization, performance analysis, and design expressions of a single-phase tapped-coupled-inductor boost converter. Expressions are derived for average and RMS input current as well as for RMS input and output capacitor current ripple. A systematic approach for sizing the tapped-coupled inductor, active switch, and output diode is presented; such approach has not been reported in related literature. This study reveals that sizing of the inductor has to be based on current ripple requirement, turns ratio, and load. Conditions that produce discontinuous inductor current are also discussed. Analysis of a non-ideal converter operating in continuous conduction mode is also conducted. The expression for the voltage ratio considering the coupling coefficient is derived. The suitability of the converter for high-voltage step-up applications is evaluated. Factors that affect the voltage boost ratio are also identified. The effects of duty ratio and load variation on the performance of the converter are also investigated. The theoretically derived characteristics are validated through simulations. Experimental results obtained at a low power level are included to validate the analytical and simulation results. A good agreement is observed among the analytical, simulation, and experimental results.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2014

This paper proposes a two-stage step-down buck and a tapped-inductor boost cascaded converter for high efficiency photovoltaic micro-inverter applications. The proposed inverter is a new structure to inject a rectified sinusoidal current into a low-frequency switching inverter for single-phase grid with unity power factor. To build a rectified-waveform of the output current. the converter employs both of a high efficiency step-up and a step-down converter in cascade. In step-down mode, tapped inductor(TI) boost converter stops and the buck converter operates alone. In boost mode, the TI converter operates with the halt of buck operation. The converter provides a rectified current to low frequency inverter, then the inverter converts the current into a unity power-factor sinusoidal waveform. By applying a TI, the converter can decrease the turn-on ratios of the main switch in TI boost converter even with an extreme step-up operation. The performance validation of the proposed design is confirmed by an experimental results of a 120W hardware prototype.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.222-226
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• 2001

This paper compares three kinds of soft-switching circuits from viewpoints of surge suppression, load characteristic, and power efficiency for a tapped-inductor buck converter with low voltage and high current. As a result, these soft-switching techniques have achieved much higher efficiency of $80\%$ when compared with a hard-switching buck converter for the output condition of 1V and 20A.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.621-631
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• 2014

To invigorate the tapped-inductor boost (TIB) topology in emerging high step-up applications for off-grid products, a lossless snubber consisting of two capacitors and three diodes is proposed. Since the switch voltage stress is minimized in the proposed circuit, it is allowed to use a device with a lower cost, higher efficiency, and higher availability. Moreover, since the leakage inductance is fully utilized, no effort to minimize it is required. This allows for a highly productive and cost-effective design of the tapped-inductor. The proposed circuit also shows a high step-up ratio and provides relaxation of the switching loss and diode reverse-recovery. In this paper, the operation is analyzed in detail, the steady-state equation is derived, and the design considerations are discussed. Some experimental results are provided to confirm the validity of the proposed circuit.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2013.07a
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• pp.177-179
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• 2013

This paper presents an LED driver which requires a high voltage gain (5-6 times). To achieve a high voltage gain, the tapped-inductor boost converter topology was used and through the analysis of converter's steady-state and its dynamic characteristics, the product design's reliability and validity were verified.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.215-223
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• 2009

A design methodology for transformers including integrated and center-tapped structures for LLC resonant converters is proposed. In the LLC resonant converter, the resonant inductor in the primary side can be merged in the transformer as a leakage inductance. And, the absence of the secondary filter inductor creates low voltage stress on the secondary rectifiers and is cost-effective. A center-tapped structure of the transformer secondary side is widely used in commercial applications because of its higher efficiency and lower cost than full-bridge structures in the rectifying stages. However, this transformer structure has problems of resonance imbalance and transformer inefficiency caused by leakage inductance imbalance in the secondary side and the position of the air-gap in the transformer, respectively. In this paper, gain curves and soft-switching conditions are derived by first harmonic approximation (FHA) and operating circuit simulation. In addition, the effects of the transformer including integrated and center-tapped structures are analyzed by new FHA models and simulations to obtain an optimal design. Finally, the effects of the air-gap position are analyzed by an electromagnetic field simulator. The proposed analysis and design are verified by experimental results with a 385W LLC resonant converter.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.231-234
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• 2003

This paper presents a novel high frequency transformer linked full-bridge type soft-switching phase-shift PWM control scheme DC-DC power converter, which can be used as power conditioner fur small-scale fuel cell power generation system. Using full-bridge soft-switching DC-DC converter topology makes possible to use low voltage high performance MOSFETs to achieve high efficiency of the power conditioner. A tapped inductor filter is implemented in the proposed soft-switching converter topology to achieve soft-switching PWM constant high frequency operation for a wide load variation range. to minimize circulating and idling currents without using additional resonant circuit and auxiliary power switching devices. The practical effectiveness of the proposed soft-switching DC-DC converter is verified in laboratory level experiment with 1 kW 100kHz breadboard setup using power MOSFETs. Actual efficiency of 94-96$\%$ is obtained for the wide load range