Saturable inductor-assisted ZVS-PWM full-bridge high-frequency link DC-DC converter operating at lowered switching and conduction losses

This paper presents a novel zero-voltage soft-switching phase-shifted PWM DC-DC full-bridge power converter using power MOSFETs which employs a tapped inductor as the output low-pass filter. By using the tapped low-pass filter inductor and saturable reactors in the rectifier stage, the freewheeling current through the transformer and its primary side circuit can be effectively minimized. In addition, the switching and conduction losses of the DC-DC power converter are substantially reduced as low as those of traditional hard-switching PWM power converters. The principle of this converter operation and analysis are illustrated and discussed. The cost effective performances of the power converter is experimentally confirmed with a 500 W 100 kHz breadboard