Soft-Switching Full-Bridge DC-DC Converter with Energy Recovery Capacitor Snubber

This paper describes a high-frequency soft-switching dc-dc converter with a simple energy recovery capacitor snubber on the secondary side. The presented dc-dc full-bridge converter with the energy recovery snubber removes the main drawbacks of the classic Phase Shifted PWM (PS-PWM) dc-dc converter, e.g., the circulating current flowing during the free-wheeling interval and dependency of the soft switching on the load current. The converter utilizes a full-bridge topology with pulse-width modulation and a centre-tapped full-wave controlled rectifier with one active switch. The zero-voltage switching on the primary side is ensured by utilising only the magnetizing current of the high-frequency transformer, and thus is load-independent. The proposed energy recovery snubber is described in detailed time waveforms of the converter and verified by simulation. The control algorithm also removes the circulating current, which is typical for PS-PWM converters. The soft-switching of the secondary side transistor is achieved by a simple capacitor snubber with an energy-recovery circuit connected to the output of the dc-dc converter. The principle of operation is verified by measurements on a 2 kW, 50 kHz laboratory model of the proposed dc-dc converter.