An Interleaved Active-Clamp Forward Converter Modified for Reduced Primary Conduction Loss Without Additional Components

Abstract

This paper proposes an interleaved active-clamp forward (IACF) converter modified for high efficiency without any additional component. To employ high input voltage, the components on one active-clamp forward module are re-arranged from the conventional IACF converter. The proposed converter can significantly reduce the primary conduction loss with large turns-ratio of the transformer due to the higher input voltage of the modified module and the expanded duty ratio at the nominal input voltage. In addition, unlike the existing approaches, the power density is not affected because there is no additional component. Finally, the proposed converter is validated experimentally using a prototype converter with 36-72 Vdc input and 480 W (12 Vdc/40 A) output.