Design of continuous-duty high-power converter for multi-purpose welding applications

One large-current high-power full-bridge DC-DC converter is often used to cater several multi-characteristic welding loads. The load could be a welding arc or a conductive molten flux. The contour of operating point (voltage-current) of each load type is different. The converter often operates under complex light-load conditions. The design of such high power continuous-duty converter needs to meet three objectives – desired control performance, high across-the-load efficiency, and superior thermal management. To address the thermal issues, this article proposes to use parallel-connected converter modules. It helps distribute the power loss over larger component base; increased surface area would assist the heat removal process. For high operating efficiency, this article proposes superior component engineering in each module. And, for high across the load efficiency, this article proposes to enable or disable an efficient converter module based on the current demand. It means each converter module is equipped to feed the connected load in stand-alone mode. For reduction of power loss, this article elaborates the role of each critical component. The distribution of heat loss would be optimally shared if the current sharing by converter modules is equal, but it needs to be compatible to the dynamic behavior of multi-input process loads. This research proposes and practically validates that single PWM-controller driven parallel-connected converter-modules are not only compatible to process dynamics, the idea would achieve proper current sharing among similar components.