Design and Experimental Results of Three- Phase Interleaved DCM Buck-Boost-Derived PFC Converter for MEA and Comparison with Single-cell Converter

Abstract

In more electric aircrafts (MEAs), the synchronous generators are connected directly to the turboengine to reduce the weight of an empty aircraft which in turn resulted in constant voltage variable frequency (CVVF) AC supply bus. In addition, the MEA has adopted high voltage DC bus in its power system to cater the various categories of load used by aircraft. Therefore, the MEA requires AC-DC power converters to convert CVVF AC to constant DC. Hence, a three- phase interleaved buck-boost-derived power factor correction converter designed for discontinuous current conduction mode in order to achieve unity power factor (UPF) operation for wide range supply frequency of MEA. The benefits of the proposed interleaved converter are higher power density, efficiency, and reliability. An analytical comparison has been made with singlecell converter to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed interleaved converter and the relevant results has been presented. The experimental results from a 2.0 kW laboratory concept-proof hardware prototype have been shown to validate the proposed converter UPF operation for wide range supply frequencies. A low input current THD of 2.7% and a maximum efficiency of 96.3% are recorded from the developed prototype.