• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.344-352
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• 2019

To achieve high efficiency and reliability, multiphase interleaved converters with coupled inductors have been widely applied. In this paper, a coupled inductor design method for 2-phase interleaved boost converters is presented. A new area product equation is derived to select the proper core size. The wire size, number of turns and air gap length are also determined by using the proposed coupled inductor design method. Finally, the validity of the proposed coupled inductor design method is confirmed by simulation and experimental results obtained from a design example.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.339-348
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• 2013

Multiphase dc-dc converters are widely used in modern power electronics applications due to their advantages over single-phase converters. Such advantages include reduced current stress in both the switching devices and passive elements, reduced output current ripple, and so on. Although the output current ripple of a converter can be significantly reduced by virtue of the interleaving effect, the inductor current ripple cannot be reduced even with the interleaving PWM method. One way to solve this problem is to use a coupled inductor. However, care must be taken in designing the coupled inductor to maximize its performances. In this paper, a detailed analysis of a coupled inductor is conducted and the effect of a coupled inductor on current ripple reduction is investigated extensively. From this analysis, a UU core based coupled inductor structure is proposed to maximize the performance of the coupled inductor.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.07a
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• pp.231-232
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• 2016

This paper investigates the design of multi-winding coupled inductor for minimum inductor current ripple. Based on the general circuit model of coupled inductor together with the operating principles of dc-dc converter, the relationship between the ripple size of inductor current and the coupling factor is derived under the different duty ratio. The optimal coupling factor of n-phase multi-winding coupled inductor which corresponds to a minimum inductor ripple current becomes -(1/n-1), i.e. a complete inverse coupling without leakage inductance, as the duty ratio of steady-state operating point approaches 1/n, 2/n, ${\cdots}$ or (n-1)/n. In an opposite manner, the optimal coupling factor value of zero, i.e. zero mutual inductance, is required when the duty ratio of steady-state operating point approaches either zero or one. Therefore, coupled inductors having optimal coupling factor can minimize the ripple current of inductor and inductor size.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.621-631
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• 2017

A KY converter integrated with a conventional synchronously rectified (SR) boost converter and a coupled inductor is presented in this paper. This improved KY converter has the following advantages: 1) the two converters use common switches; 2) the voltage gain of the KY converter can be improved due to the integration of a boost converter and a coupled inductor; 3) the leakage inductance of the coupled inductor is utilized to achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS); 4) the current stress on the charge pump capacitors and the decreasing rate of the diode current can be limited due to the use of the coupled inductor; and 5) the output current is non-pulsating. Moreover, the active switches are driven by using one half-bridge gate driver. Thus, no isolated driver is needed. Finally, the operating principle and analysis of the proposed converter are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed converter.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.348-355
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• 2022

A bipolar DC distribution system suffers from an imbalance in voltages when asymmetric loads are connected at the outputs. Dedicated voltage balancers are required to address the imbalance in bipolar voltage levels. However, additional components eventually increase the cost and decrease the efficiency and power density of the system. Therefore, to deal with the imbalance in output voltages without adding any extra components, this study presents a coupled inductor-based voltage balancing technique with a dual-output CLL resonant converter. The proposed coupled inductor does not require extra magnetic components to balance the output voltages because it is the result of resonant inductors of the CLL tank circuit. It can also avoid complex control schemes applied to voltage balancing. Moreover, with the proposed coupled inductor, the CLL converter acquires good features including zero voltage and zero current switching. Detailed analysis of the proposed coupled inductor is presented with different load conditions. A 3.6-kW hardware prototype was built and tested to validate the performance of the proposed coupled inductor-based voltage balancing technique.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.827-833
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• 2014

This study proposes a coupled inductor method for the parallel operation of a power conditioning system (PCS). When primary and secondary currents flow in the same direction in a coupled inductor, total flux and inductance are cancelled; when currents flow in opposite directions, each flux becomes an individual inductor. These characteristics are applied in the parallel operation of a PCS. To connect at a grid code, abnormal current, which is barred under the grid connection code, is blocked by using a coupled inductor. A design based on the capacity and current duration time of a PCS is verified through hardware implementation. Experiment results show the effectiveness of variance reduction.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.249-255
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• 2021

A novel current balancing technique for multichannel light-emitting diode (LED) that uses a series resonance and coupled inductor is proposed in this paper. The proposed LED driver balances output currents through frequency control and enables zero-voltage switching. The proposed converter utilizes the charge balance condition of the resonant capacitor and the current sharing function of the coupled inductor to achieve whole LED current balancing without an additional controller. The proposed coupled inductor can integrate the current balancing function and the resonant inductor, so the power density can be increased by reducing the number of magnetic devices. A 40 W prototype is built to verify the validity of this LED driver, and the experimental results are successfully obtained.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.879-891
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• 2018

A bidirectional dc-dc converter is used in battery energy storage systems owing to the growing requirements of a charging and discharging mode of battery. The magnetic coupling of output or input inductors in parallel-connected multi modules of a bidirectional dc-dc converter is often utilized to reduce the peak-to-peak ripple size of the inductor current. This study proposes a novel design guideline to achieve minimal ripple size of the inductor current under bidirectional power flow. The newly proposed design guideline of optimized coupling factor is applicable to the buck and boost operation modes of a bidirectional dc-dc converter. Therefore, the coupling factor value of the coupled inductor does not have to be optimized separately for buck and boost operation modes. This new observation is explained using the theoretical model of coupled inductor and confirmed through simulation and experimental test.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.195-196
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• 2015

This paper investigates the design of coupled inductor for minimum inductor current ripple in rapid traction battery charger systems. Based on the general circuit model of coupled inductor together with the operating principles of dc-dc converter, the relationship between the ripple size of inductor current and the coupling factor is derived under the different duty ratio. The optimal coupling factor which corresponds to a minimum inductor ripple current becomes -0.5, i.e. a complete inverse coupling without leakage inductance, as the steady-state duty ratio operating point approaches 1/3 or 2/3. In an opposite manner, the optimal coupling factor value of zero, i.e. zero mutual inductance, is required when the steady-state duty ratio operating point approaches either zero or one. Coupled inductors having optimal coupling factor can minimize the ripple current of inductor and battery current resulting in a reliable and efficient operation of battery chargers.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.18-24
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• 2019

In this paper, expandable bobbin type multiple integrated coupled-inductor applied 4-paralled switching rectifier was proposed. To design the proposed inductor easily, inductance designing formula was derived through magnetic circuit analysis of the 4-paralleled integrated coupled-inductor. Furthermore, to verify practicality of the proposed inductor, it was applied in 600W class 4-paralleled interleaved switching rectifier, and the steady-state characteristics of the proposed inductor and discrete inductors were compared. Consequently, it was showed that the proposed inductor can replace the conventional discrete inductors with alternative electrical characteristic standard, hence miniaturization of the SMPS can be achieved. From the test result, test circuit with the proposed inductor showed maximum 97.1% of power conversion efficiency and under 18W of power loss where the circuit with discrete inductors showed 96.7% and 20W respectively.