Modeling and Design of High-Power Enhanced Leakage-Inductance-Integrated Medium-Frequency Transformers for DAB Converters

Abstract

For dual active bridge (DAB) converters, integrating the phase-shifting inductance (PSI) in the medium-frequency transformer (MFT) is an effective way to improve the overall power density. Different from the existing leakage-inductance-integrated (LII) structure, a concentric-winding (CW) enhanced leakage-inductance-integrated (ELII) structure, which includes an additional core, is proposed in this paper. In order to explain the operating mode of CW ELII MFT, a magnetic circuit model is established, and the analysis is carried out under the typical DAB excitation. The total leakage inductance of CW ELII MFT is divided into the winding leakage inductance and the additional leakage inductance for calculation. The integrated structure makes the heat dissipation of the MFT challenging. Therefore, the air–water combined cooling method is adopted in the design. A thermal resistance model is built for the winding air channel under forced convection. On this basis, MFT designs with different integration structures for different leakage inductance requirements are compared. Finally, a 200 kW/4 kHz/200 μH MFT prototype was designed and manufactured, which achieved the power density of 5.16 kW/dm3 and the efficiency of 99.30%. The prototype was tested in a DAB converter, which is a module of a 2 MW modular multilevel converter-bidirectional DC–DC converter (MMC-BDC).