Braking energy recovery for electric traction based on super-capacitor and Bidirectional DC-DC converter

In this paper, a braking energy recovery system based on super-capacitor was presented. The method use super-capacitor and the conventional braking resistance constitute a new braking unit to realize the regenerative energy recovery and reduction of power peaks during acceleration. During the braking, braking energy will be stored in the super-capacitor by Bidirectional DC/DC converter which works as a Buck topology. During start-up or acceleration, the super-capacitor discharge by the same Bidirectional DC/DC converter which works as a Boost topology. In order to validate the design and do further research, the paper presents a mathematical model of the whole system. The traction motor is AC motor, the motor parameters are set according to the experimental platform of 30KW and the Bidirectional DC/DC converter is designed as high power half bridge configuration. At the end, the simulation is done, the results of simulation is consistent with the theoretical analysis.