Design and Analysis of Interleaved Boost Converter for Fuel Cell Applications

Fuel cell is one of the promising energy technologies for the sustainable future because of its high energy efficiency. For designing high efficiency fuel cell power systems, a suitable DC-DC converter is required. In this paper, an Interleaved Boost Converter (IBC) has been proposed as a suitable interface for fuel cells. IBC for fuel cell application reduces the ripple amplitude of the high frequency input current, avoids high frequency interaction inside the fuel cell stack and prolongs the fuel cell lifetime. A three-phase directly coupled IBC has been proposed in this paper compared to the conventional 2-phase IBC. The performance of IBC has been investigated over the operating range of the fuel cell. Detailed analysis has been done to investigate the relationship between ripple content, duty ratio and coupling coefficient. The design equations for IBC have been presented. The performance of IBC is studied for uncoupled and directly coupled inductors. Simulation study of IBC interfaced with fuel cells has been studied using MATLAB. Theoretical analysis and hardware prototype has been performed to validate the results.