System, method, and results for the regenerative burn-in testing of high-power DC-DC converters

High-power, bidirectional DC/DC converters are widely used in electric vehicles. As vehicle volumes increase, the robust and efficient testing of these converters will be key to high reliability and low cost. A highly configurable, closed-loop, regenerative burn-in test system is presented here that reduces power supply and load requirements to less than 1/10^th of those required for conventional test setups. Data is presented from the first 220 units run through the test setups installed on a manufacturing line to illuminate the benefits of this test method in benchmarking converter performance, reducing both infancy and wear-out field failures, conserving grid energy, and reducing test system cost and space requirements.