Design of a High Efficiency Fuel Cell dc/dc Converter Dedicated to Transportation Applications

Abstract

This work consists in a theoretical and practical study of a dc/dc converter designed to be coupled to a fuel cell stack in transport applications. It also proposes analysis and control of the whole system using digital signal processor (DSP) controller. The research is focused on the integration of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) stack in an embedded system. The fuel cell is characterized by a low-voltage high-current electrical power deliverty. Therefore, it is obvious that a dedicated power interface is necessary to adapt and fix voltage and current levels accordingly to the application requirements. In our case, the power conversion will be done by a high-frequency-transformer-based DC/DC converter. The use of a high frequency transformer allows obtaining significant output voltage ratio (approximately 12 in our case), high efficiency, reduce compactness of used elements and limited semi-conductors losses.