Research and design of Power Conditioning System for Alkali Metal Thermo-Electric Converter

A PCS (Power Conditioning System) for AMTEC (Alkali Metal Thermo-Electric Converter), which is composed of DC/DC converter and DC/AC converter adapting to volt-ampere characteristic of AMTEC, is researched and designed. Two parts of the PCS are separated by a high frequency transformer, so the disadvantage of low frequency one is eliminated. Using phase-shift ZVS (Zero Voltage Switching) full bridge and voltage closed loop control, DC/DC converter converts output voltage of AMTEC which fluctuates in a wide range to a steady voltage. DC/AC converter is controlled by optimal SHEPWM (Selective Harmonic Elimination PWM) technique, which makes THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) of the inverter being filtered as objective function and uses penalty function algorithm for optimized calculation, so the optimal switching angle of the inverter can be obtained. The experimental result shows that the PCS has the advantages of wide voltage input, high converting efficiency and low THD in output voltage. The PCS proposed in this paper will be useful for the development of AMTEC with high power and high efficiency.