Energy efficiency and fault tolerance comparison of DC/DC converters topologies for fuel cell electric vehicles

Abstract

Due to low DC voltage generated from fuel cell, a DC/DC converter must be used to interface fuel cell and DC bus in automotive applications such as fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). Furthermore, the occurrence of power semiconductors failures in DC/DC converter has negative effects both for fuel cell and DC/DC converter and consequently on the whole powertrain. The purpose of this paper is to show and analyze the impacts of power semiconductors faults on energy efficiency and waveforms (e.g. FC and DC bus voltages, FC current) without modifying the topology and control. Besides, it has been chosen to focus this study on two topologies of interleaved DC/DC converters enabling to take into consideration the requirements of FCEV applications. These topologies have the capacity compared with the boost topology to operate even in case of faults, ensuring consequently a continuity of service.