A lossless active clamping circuit for current doubler topologies

Abstract

This letter presents a new lossless clamping circuit on the secondary side for DC-DC converters with a current-doubler structure. This circuit reduces ringing on secondary-side rectifiers due to leakage inductance. The ringing loss is recovered to the load. As a result, efficiency is improved, and the voltage stress on secondary-side rectifiers is reduced significantly. These improvements allow DC-DC topologies with a current doubler to operate efficiently at high switching frequencies. The operating principle of the clamping circuit is detailed. Simulations and experimental results validate the proposed technique.