Power recycler for DC power supplies burn-in test: design and experimentation

Conventionally, the burn-in test of DC power supplies uses resistors as load. Consequently, all the energy involved is lost by heating, provoking still an additional energy waste with the air conditioning system. The power recycler is a power converter that replaces the resistors load banks in the burn-in test of DC power supplies with the advantage that most of the energy is sent back to the utility grid with low THD and quasi-unitary power factor. The economical benefits due to energy savings are evident and contribute in reducing the final cost of the equipment. Besides, the power recycler is totally agreeable to the world concern about ecology and energy conservation. This paper analyses the proposed solutions in recent literature and presents a new architecture for the implementation of a power recycler for DC power supplies burn-in tests. The proposed circuit is regulated by conventional integrated circuits: PWM and power factor controllers. Circuit operation, design characteristics, simulation and experimental results of a 2 kW prototype are provided in the paper