A New Family of ZVS-PWM Active-Clamping DC-to-DC Boost Converters: Analysis, Design, and Experimentation

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new family of zero-voltage switching (ZVS) pulse-width modulation (PWM) active-clamping dc-to-dc boost converters. This technique presents ZVS commutation without additional voltage stress and a significant increase in the circulating reactive energy throughout the converters. So, the efficiency and the power density become advantages when compared to the hard-switching boost converter. Thus, these converters may become very attractive in power factor correction applications. In this paper the complete family of boost converters is shown, and one particular circuit, taken as an example, is analyzed, simulated, and experimented. Experimental results are presented, taken from a laboratory prototype rated at 1600 W, input voltage of 300 V, output voltage of 400 V, and operating at 100 kHz. The measured efficiency at full load was 98%, and the converter kept an efficiency up to 95% from 17% to 100% of full load, without additional voltage and current stresses.