Mid Sweden University

48 V is emerging as a safe-to-touch alternative voltage level for electric vehicles (EVs). Using a low- instead of a high-voltage drive train reduces isolation efforts, eliminates the risk of electric shock, and thus increases the system safety. In contrast, fast charging of a 48 V battery would require very high currents and is incompatible with the widely established high-voltage electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Instead of employing additional on board power converters for fast charging, the concept of a reconfigurable battery is presented. A small-scale prototype system is designed consisting of eight 48 V lithium iron phosphate battery modules. In series configuration, they can be charged at 460 V with up to 25 A. In 48 V parallel configuration, the peak discharge current is up to 800 A. The MOSFET-based reconfiguration system also operates as a module charge balancer during high-voltage charging. The cost overhead for the reconfiguration system is estimated to 3% for a scaled-up full size EV. Due to the additional reconfiguration switch resistances, the simulation of a 48 V 75 kW electric vehicle in the World harmonized Light-duty vehicles Test Procedure showed a performance reduction of 0.24%.

To execute soft switching methods in resonant power converters, transformers with larger leakage inductance are getting more attention. Many papers have constructed various concepts in this regard. However, a discussion about, how the transformer efficiency is affected is lacking in the literature. This paper analyses the effects of the increased leakage inductance on the performance of the transformer. A transformer for increased leakage inductance is modelled and constructed to investigate the losses. The model discusses the effects of increased leakage inductance either by increasing the inter-winding spacing or by integrating the magnetic shunt within the transformer. The investigations show that increasing the leakage inductance by inserting a magnetic shunt can have severe degrading effects on the performance of the transformer, if not designed adequately. Additional losses are also calculated and the effects are verified by the experiments.

The first electric low-voltage vehicles were constructed in the mid-19th century, but by the early 20th century they were progressively replacedby successors with internal combustion engines. As the consequences ofusing fossil fuels are better understood, our society is now transitioning back. The strong driving force towards electric transportation can be traced to several events and trends. The foremost of these is perhaps the rising awareness of climate change and the necessary reduction of the environmental footprint, as well associated political will for change. Alongside this, the pioneering automotive company Tesla, Inc. showed what electric cars are capable of and how to easily charge them along the road. The diesel gate unearthed in 2015, also played a major role. This transition is not without challenges, however. An electric car is expected to be reasonable priced, sustainable, environmentally friendly and electrically safe, even in case of an accident. Overnight charging at home should be possible, as well as the ability to quickly charge while in transit. While the industry has long experience with high-voltage electrical machines, the required battery technology is quite new and low-voltage in nature. Currently, the battery is the most costly part of an electric drivetrain and it has the highest environmental impact. Efficient battery use is therefore key for sustainability and a responsible consumption of the resources available. Nonetheless, most electric vehicles today use lethal high-voltage traction drives which require a considerable isolation effort and complex battery pack. Previous research results showed that a 48 V drivetrain compared to a high-voltage one, increases the drive-cycle efficiency. Hence, similar driving range can be reached with a smaller battery. This thesis provides an introduction to low-voltage, high-current, battery-powered traction drives. With the aim of increasing efficiency, safety and redundancy while reducing cost, a solution that breaks with century-old electric machine design principles is proposed and investigated. An overview and motivation to further investigate 48 V drivetrains with intrinsically safe and redundant machines is provided. The main focus of this work is the practical implementation of multi-phase low-voltage but high-current machines with integrated power electronics as well as components for a 48 V drivetrain. With this work, it is confirmed that today’s MOSFETs are not the limiting factor towards low-voltage, high-current drives. In the first part of this work, two small-scale prototype machines were constructed and tested. The air-cooled, small-scale 1.2 kW proto-type reached a copper fill-factor of 0.84. The machine’s low terminal-to-terminal resistance of 0.23 mΩ, including the MOSFET-based power electronics, allowed continuous driving currents up to 600 A. The resistive MOSFET losses stayed below 21 W. The second part focuses on the key components for a 48 V high-power drivetrain. A W-shaped coil for a multiphase 48 V machine with direct in-conductor cooling was designed and tested. With glycolwater, it reached a current density of 49.5 A/mm2 with 0.312 l/min flowrate. Furthermore, a reconfigurable battery pack for 48 V driving andhigh-voltage charging was investigated.

The development of recent high-efficient power converters leads to novel multi-switch topologies. To allow precise control of multiple switches, high-resolution PWM signals are required. Today, DSCs already provide PWM signal generation with 250 ps resolution. Nevertheless, limitations prevent them from meeting new converter topologies. Still, they are a promising choice for prototyping compared to FPGAs in terms of cost, footprint and complexity. To overcome these limitations, a hybrid-controller with a dual core dsPIC DSC and a CPLD was designed. The presented controller is optimized for a wide-range converter with reconfigurable transformer configuration. Since it is very versatile, easy to configure and fabricate, it can also be used for prototyping of many other converter topologies. In addition to the regular DSC features, it adds dynamic signal routing, logic and synchronization capabilities. The proposed hybrid-controller is described, experimentally verified and compared to a purely DSC based controller when driving a phase-shifted full-bridge with reconfigurable transformer. To estimate the component stress, the generated PWM waveforms were captured and fed into a spice simulation of the converter. 

Traction drive applications demand high power density motors with a good stator cooling design. We propose a novel multi-phase winding for a 48 V traction drive design having identical preformed hollow copper conductors with in-conductor direct cooling capability. This paper studies the cooling performance of an individual conductor phase using either EGW50/50 or water as coolant. Analytical calculations and experiments are conducted on a straight conductor of the same length using 20°C water as coolant. The results are then cross verified with those from the FEM simulations to validate the simulation setup. Then a final simulation is conducted at a current of 700A and a current density of 49.5 A/mm 2 on the preformed conductor using 65 CEGW50/50 as coolant at a pressure of 140kPa. The results highlight the exceptional performance of the cooling design which enables a power dissipation of 71OW at a maximum conductor temperature rise of only 56. 9 C. 

In recent times, the boom in electric vehicle (EV) is increasing due to the development of highly efficient power converters and to reduce the fossil fuel dependency. Hence, the progress in both electric and hybrid vehicles are rising. However, the safety become an issue in EVs for operating at high voltage level. Therefore, the application of the low voltage motor in EVs is proposed. This helps to increase the safety in the vehicle and reliability of the system. The proposed voltage for such low voltage motor drives is 48V. This voltage level is also beneficial for integration of battery and ultra-capacitors (UCs). This paper proposes the state of art of designing power converters for low voltage motor drives. Additionally, a novel bi-directional DC-DC converter with reconfigurable transformer is proposed for driving low voltage motors. The proposed bi-directional converter can operate with wide input (12V-4SV) and wide output voltage (1.5V-24V) ranges for power level of 1. 2kW. Analysis of this system and operating principle of the novel converter are also included for different output voltage and current levels. The presence of UCs in the system helps to improve the control response required during accelerating and braking. The simulation results of the system are included in the paper for different voltage and speed levels. The preliminary experiment result is included in the paper.

A high copper fill factor allows reducing the resistive losses responsible for more than 50 % of the losses in today's most commonly used electrical motors. Single-turn windings achieve a copper fill factor close to one. Furthermore, they do not suffer from turn to turn faults and provide a low thermal resistance between winding and stator. The reduced EMF of single-turn winding configurations promotes the use of extra-low voltage high current MOSFETs. Rapid development of these MOSFETs allows reversing common design principles to explore new applications, such as battery electric traction drives. This paper presents a 2.5 V 1 kW MOSFET driven 13-phase permanent magnet DC motor with a single-turn winding configuration. The motor prototype with a copper fill factor of 0.84 was tested with continuous drive currents up to 600 A. The measured torque-efficiency map shows that such a high-current concept with voltages below 60 V is feasible using today's extremely low-voltage high current semiconductors. Due to the rapid development of such switches, there is great potential in this concept for further improvements. This work presents a small-scale version of the high-current drive, which is part of the development of an extra-low voltage traction drive concept. 

Rapid development of extremely-low voltage high current MOSFETs allows reversing common design principles to explore new applications, such as battery powered traction drives. This enables the usage of multi-phase single-turn stator windings which can achieve a copper fill factor close to one. This paper briefly describes the proposed 2V, 1.1kW MOSFET commutated 13-phase permanent magnet DC motor and presents the efficiency and resistive loss measurements of the first prototype. The motor was successfully run with drive currents up to 520 A. Most of the obtained losses were resistive contact losses due to the flexible winding connections, less than 6% are dedicated to the MOSFETs. The results show that such a high current drive system is feasible and has great potential for further improvements, which is supported by the rapid development of extremely-low voltage high current semiconductors.

This paper proposes an extremely-low voltage high current MOSFET-based drive architecture. A single-turn multiphase winding design allows a copper fill factor approaching one. The single-turn coil design leads to a low EMF voltage and high current design which requires a matched drive system. To identify the technical design obstacles and verify the feasibility of the proposed architecture, a small scale prototype is built and successfully tested. The described prototype consists of an extremely-low voltage 13-phase single-turn coil permanent magnet DC motor and MOSFET-based commutator. The prototype's locked rotor-torque and no-load power consumption, as well as the EMF voltage measurements are presented and the DC motor constants are extracted. The experimental results from the prototype measurements indicate a promising potential for cost-effective extremely-low voltage high current MOSFET-based drive systems.