Abstract:

The excessive use of fossil fuels has caused great concern due to modern environmental problems, particularly air pollution. The above situation demands that different research areas aimed at a sustainable movement to reduce CO2 emissions caused by non-renewable organic fuels. Automotive transportation is a significant source of pollution due to many vehicles on the road daily around the world. A solution to this problem is using Electric Vehicles (EV) for mass transportation of people. However, these systems require high-power DC/DC converters capable of handling high current levels and should feature high efficiencies in charging their batteries. For this application, a single-stage converter is not viable due to the high current stress in a switch, the low power density, and low efficiency due to higher switching losses. One solution to this problem is Multiphase Converters, which offer high efficiency, high power density, and low current ripple on the battery side. However, these characteristics are affected by the current imbalance in the phases. This paper is focused on studying the effects of the current imbalance in a Multiphase Buck Converter, used as an intermediate cover between a power supply and the battery of an EV. Analyzing the efficiency and thermal stress parameters in different scenarios of current balance and current imbalance in each phase.