Project description
Streamlining the design of power factor correction converters
The power factor of a power system is the ratio of the power that the system draws from the main supply and the power it actually consumes. A system with a power factor of 1 consumes all the power that it draws. Power factor correction circuitry added to power supplies increases the power factor of a load. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PORT-BICPD project plans to build power factor correction converters with the following characteristics: 3.7 kW power rating, high efficiency (exceeding 99 %) and high power density (exceeding 85 W/in3). Advanced power converters will play a critical role in emerging applications that require increased amounts of power. These include server farms, 5G base stations, more-electric aircraft and electric vehicles.
Objective
The demand for electrical energy increases at a steady pace worldwide due to the growing and emerging applications such as server/telecom farms, 5G base station, more-electric aircrafts, consumer electronics, robotics, and electric vehicles. The volume and efficiency of the power converters utilized in these systems play a critical role for the fulfillment of this growth. Higher efficiency translates into more capacity utilization and less cooling efforts, whereas low volume and weight usually reduces the cost of the electronic components. Both of these aspects heavily depend on the innovations on the power topologies, control algorithms, magnetics, thermal substrates, and particularly power semiconductor switches.
The power converter topologies in the literature have been invented to overcome or mitigate the large reverse recovery and output charge of Si power devices, while magnetics are optimized for switching frequencies that are achievable with Si power devices. However, the maximum efficiency and power density of Si based converters have already reached to its theoretical limit through innovations on the control and converter topologies. Recently, the adoption of the wide band-gap semiconductors has escalated the expectations from power electronics significantly, and initiated the transformation of the power architecture through new topologies and control innovations, while bringing new challenges in the high frequency domain.
This research proposal is intended to innovate, design, and implement a new front-end PFC converter switched at >400 kHz to achieve best in-class efficiency and power density with targets of more than 98.5% peak efficiency and 85W/in3 enclosed power density at 3.7kW output power. The know-how and framework will then be engineered to meet certain industrial specs of various applications including the pre-regulator stage of server/telecom supplies, on-board chargers, industrial drives.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectrical engineeringpower engineeringelectric power distribution
- social sciencessocial geographytransportelectric vehicles
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicstopology
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicssemiconductivity
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
59510 Tekirdag
Türkiye