A New Soft-Switching High Gain DC-DC Converter With Reduced Components Realized By Active Clamp and Coupled Inductors

This article proposes a new soft-switching high-gain DC-DC converter with reduced components. It attains high voltage gain at a low duty ratio with the help of an active clamp and two coupled inductors. To reduce switch voltage spikes and recycle energy leakage in the coupled inductors, an active clamp circuit is employed. This energy leakage alleviates the reverse recovery issue of diodes. As a result, the voltage stresses on switches and diodes are minimal and help them operate at high gain effectively. The proposed converter consists of dual switches that act as main and auxiliary switches. These operate at zero voltage switching called soft-switching to reduce conduction and switching losses to a very minimum hence efficiency can improve significantly. To further confirm the effectiveness of the proposed converter, it has been analyzed in eight modes of operation to understand its characteristics under both steady-state and transient conditions. Additionally, it can achieve continuous current, which is beneficial for photovoltaic, fuel cells, and batteries in DC microgrid applications. Furthermore, a 160W, 20V-200V prototype experimental setup was developed and its performance was tested under various duty ratios, turns ratios, and load conditions. Finally, the experimental results are presented, and the proposed converter is compared with existing converters in the literature to demonstrate its claimed features.