A dual half-bridge converter with adaptive energy storage to achieve ZVS over full range of operation conditions

The phase-shifted full-bridge (PSFB) converter is widely employed in high-power applications. However, circulating current, duty-cycle loss, secondary voltage oscillation, and narrow zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) range are the main drawbacks of the conventional PSFB converter. This paper proposes a novel full-bridge converter to improve the performance of the conventional PSFB converter. The proposed converter contains two paralleled half-bridge inverters and an auxiliary inductor on the primary side. The rectifier stage is composed of six diodes connected with the form of full-bridge rectification. This structure allows the stored energy for ZVS operation to change adaptively with duty-cycle. The power can be transferred from the primary side to the secondary side during the whole period. Therefore, the requirement of output filter inductance is reduced and the circulating current is removed. The proposed converter is a good candidate for high power, high voltage and variable input voltage applications. The operation principle and performance are verified on a laboratory prototype.