Synthesis of Medium Voltage dc-to-dc Converters From Low-Voltage, High-Frequency PWM Switching Converters

Low-voltage dc-to-dc power conversion is a very mature industry which uses high-frequency pulsewidth modulation (PWM) switching techniques. The passive and active components needed to build low-voltage dc-to-dc converters are highly available, affordable and constantly improving. In this paper, a very simple and systematic method of using a large number of low-voltage, high-frequency PWM converters to synthesize highly redundant, medium voltage (4-40 kV) dc-to-dc converters is presented. Theoretical and practical considerations are discussed in necessary detail and test results of an actual 10-kW, 10 kV-to-400 V, converter built from 48 low-voltage forward converters are presented. Real-time and average reduced circuit models are derived to predict the dynamical behavior of the converter and to design the feedback control loop.