Comprehensive Comparison of Full-and Partial-Power Processing Converters for Aviation Energy Storage System

With the development of more electric aircraft, power rating of the converter interfacing the energy storage system and the DC bus has been increasing, making it challenging for traditional converters to meet the requirements for high efficiency and high power density. Converters adopting partial power processing technology only process a portion of the total transferred power, offering a potential solution to this challenge. However, the advantages of partial power converters over traditional non-isolated converters have not been fully studied. To address this issue, this paper comprehensively compares partial power dual active bridge converter (PPP-DAB) with full power dual active bridge converter (FPP-DAB) and bidirectional Buck/Boost converter (BBC). The detailed loss model is established to evaluate the efficiency. The designed heatsink thermal resistance and magnetic component size are used to compare power density. Results indicate that PPP-DAB outperforms FPP-DAB and BBC, making it more suitable for high power aviation energy storage systems.