The adoption of silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors is regarded as a promising means of improving the fuel efficiency of all types of electrically powered vehicles, including plug-in, electric, fuel cell, and hybrid vehicles (PHVs, EVs, FCVs, and HVs). For this reason, adoption in a wide variety of vehicles is currently being studied, including in the fuel cell (FC) boost converter of an FC bus. The FC boost converter controls the output voltage of the FC up to 650 V. In this research, SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SiC-SBDs) were adopted in the upper arm of an FC boost converter. Since the forward voltage (Vf) of SiC-SBDs is smaller than conventional Si-PiN diodes (Si-PiNDs), the conduction loss of SiC-SBDs is correspondingly smaller. Recovery loss can also be reduced by at least 90% compared to Si-PiNDs since the recovery current of SiC-SBDs is substantially smaller. Lowering the recovery current of the upper arm has the effect of reducing the superimposed current when the silicon insulated gate bipolar transistors (Si-IGBTs) in the lower arm turn on. As a result, the turn-on loss of the lower arm can be reduced by approximately 70%. It was confirmed that installing SiC-SBDs in the upper arm of the FC boost converter improved efficiency by 0.5% in the load range over 50%.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Efficiency Improvement of Boost Converter for Fuel Cell Bus by Silicon Carbide Diodes


    Additional title:

    Sae Int. J. Alt. Power


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    SAE 2016 World Congress and Exhibition ; 2016



    Publication date :

    2016-04-05


    Size :

    5 pages




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English





    Robust Control of Interleaved Boost Converter for Fuel Cell Systems

    Wang, Congcong / Ma, Rui / Song, Jian et al. | IEEE | 2023


    Comparison of 1200 V silicon carbide Schottky diodes and silicon power diodes

    Chang, H.-R. / Gupta, R. / Winterhalter, C. et al. | AIAA | 2000


    BOOST POWER CONVERTER FOR FUEL CELL OF UUV ADN METHOD THEREFOR

    SUKMIN YOON / JIN HO KIM / PHIL YEOB LEE | European Patent Office | 2022

    Free access