Magnetic materials and soft-switched topologies for high-current DC-DC converters

The thesis is focused on the magnetic materials comparison and selection for high-power non-isolated dc-dc converters for industrial applications or electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. The application of high-frequency bi-directional soft-switched dc-dc converters is also investigated. The thesis initially outlines the motivation for an energy-efficient transportation system with minimum environmental impact and reduced dependence on exhaustible resources. This is followed by a general overview of the power system architectures for electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. The vehicle power sources and general dc-dc converter topologies are discussed. The dc-dc converter components are discussed with emphasis on recent semiconductor advances. A novel bi-directional soft-switched dc-dc converter with an auxiliary cell is introduced in this thesis. The soft-switching cell allows for the MOSFET's intrinsic body diode to operate in a half-bridge without reduced efficiency. The converter's mode-by-mode operation is analysed and closed-form expressions are presented for the average current gain of the converter. The design issues are presented and circuit limitations are discussed. Magnetic materials for the main dc-dc converter inductor are compared and contrasted. Novel magnetic material comparisons are introduced, which include the material dc bias capability and thermal conductivity. An inductor design algorithm is developed and used to compare the various magnetic materials for the application. The area-product analysis is presented for the minimum inductor size and highlights the optimum magnetic materials. Finally, the high-flux magnetic materials are experimentally compared. The practical effects of frequency, dc-bias, and converters duty-cycle effect for arbitrary shapes of flux density, air gap effects on core and winding, the winding shielding effect, and thermal configuration are investigated. The thesis results have been documented at IEEE EPE conference in 2007 and 2008, IEEE APEC in 2009 and 2010, and IEEE VPPC in 2010. A 2011 journal has been approved by IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

Inter-ELM evolution of the edge current density profile on the ASDEX upgrade tokamak

The sudden decrease of plasma stored energy and subsequent power deposition on the first wall of a tokamak due to edge localised modes (ELMs) is potentially detrimental to the success of a future fusion reactor. Understanding and control of ELMs is critical for the longevity of these devices and also to maximise their performance. The commonly accepted picture of ELMs posits a critical pressure gradient and current density in the plasma edge, above which coupled magnetohy drodynamic peeling-ballooning modes become unstable. Much analysis has been presented in recent years on the spatial and temporal evolution of the edge pressure gradient. However, the edge current density has typically been overlooked due to the difficulties in measuring this quantity. In this thesis, a novel method of current density recovery is presented, using the equilibrium solver CLISTE to reconstruct a high resolution equilibrium utilising both external magnetic and internal edge kinetic data measured on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The evolution of the edge current density relative to an ELM crash is presented, showing that a resistive delay in the buildup of the current density is unlikely. An uncertainty analysis shows that the edge current density can be determined with an accuracy consistent with that of the kinetic data used. A comparison with neoclassical theory demonstrates excellent agreement be- tween the current density determined by CLISTE and the calculated profiles. Three ELM mitigation regimes are investigated: Type-II ELMs, ELMs sup- pressed by external magnetic perturbations, and Nitrogen seeded ELMs. In the first two cases, the current density is found to decrease as mitigation on- sets, indicating a more ballooning-like plasma behaviour. In the latter case, the flux surface averaged current density can decrease while the local current density increases, providing a mechanism to suppress both the peeling and ballooning modes.