Thermal analysis of two basic bidirectional DC-DC converters.

In the design of power electronics converters, the operating temperature of semiconductor devices is vital. In this paper, the electrical model is integrated with a more accurate thermal model, which was performed in a circuit simulator and includes a temperature-dependent power losses model. The bidirectional DC-DC converter operating concept and performance are investigated in this work. The PLECS simulation software is utilized to simulate the high-voltage and the low-voltage side switches, both of which have switching losses. In this paper, the performance of two prominent non-isolated bidirectional DC-DC converters (CUK and Buck-Boost) is studied. The SCT50N120 MOSFET model is employed to compare the performance of the two selected converters with an output power of 1 kW. The comparison is based on two nominated ambient temperatures which are 25 °C and 40 °C. A thermal simulation is performed to estimate the safe, better temperature for the MOSFET and higher efficiency. The results show that the Cuk converter exhibits better temperature and fewer losses than the buck-boost converter with the selected operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]