Design methodology with optimization of an interleaved buck converter for automotive application

This paper presents a design methodology applied to interleaved converters. This methodology is based on a multi-physic optimisation. The number of cells is used as a key parameter to formalise this approach with analytical models established to offer compromise needed between the computation time and results accuracy. The proposed methodology is applied to an interleaved buck converter for automotive application considering electric, volume, efficiency and thermal constraints. It allows to find the optimal converter architecture by searching the optimal number of cells and adequate active and passive components selected from a manufacturer data base. The methodology is drawn up to remove the risk of feasibility of a converter configuration considering several design specifications.