SWITCHING INVERTERS AND CONVERTERS FOR POWER CONVERSION

• US 20110051473A1
• Filed: 08/28/2009
• Published: 03/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Davila, Juan Manuel Rivas, Glaser, John Stanley
• Granted Patent: US 7,924,580 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 363/24
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 3/1588 comprising at least one synchronous rectifier element H02M3/1582, H02M3/1584 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 7/5381 Parallel type
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/10 Technologies improving the efficiency by using switched-mode power supplies [SMPS], i.e. efficient power electronics conversion e.g. power factor correction or reduction of losses in power supplies or efficient standby modes

Abstract

A switching inverter having two single-ended EF₂ inverter sections coupled together with a shared ground and partially shared tunable resonant network that is coupled to at least one load, wherein each inverter section comprises a switching section, and wherein the shared tunable network section allows independent tuning of an impedance seen by the corresponding switching section thereby independently tuning even and odd harmonics of the switching frequency.

Claims

1. A push-pull inverter device, comprising:

two substantially identical single-ended EF₂ inverter sections coupled together with a shared ground and a resonant network that is coupled to at least one load, wherein each inverter section comprises a switching section,

wherein the switching sections are switched at a same switching frequency, but with a phase difference of about 180 degrees,

and wherein the resonant network is partially shared and independently tuned to an impedance seen by each respective switching section, thereby providing independent tuning of even and odd components of the switching frequency.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein said resonant network comprises a first resonator section, a second resonator section, and a third resonator section.

3. The device according to claim 2, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of inductors and a shared capacitor, wherein the inductors are adjusted to control the impedance at odd harmonics and the shared capacitor is adjusted to control the impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.

4. The device according to claim 2, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of capacitors and a shared inductor, wherein the capacitors are adjusted to control the impedance at odd harmonics and the shared inductor is adjusted to control the impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.

5. The device according to claim 2, wherein a pair of inductors in the first resonator section are combined to form a center-tapped single inductor.

6. The device according to claim 2, wherein components in said first section, and said second section have the same value.

7. The device according to claim 1, wherein the two inverter sections are labeled A and B and said at least one load is combined such that Z_LD=Z_LDA+Z_LDB, wherein Z_LD is the combined load, Z_LDA is the load for inverter section A, and Z_LDB is the load for inverter section B.

8. The device according to claim 1, wherein said switching section operates at a switching frequency F_S wherein F_S is a frequency in the range of 10 MHz to 300 MHz.

9. The device according to claim 1, wherein frequency components F_n are separated into even components F_e and odd components F_o, said even frequency components appear as common-mode signals and said odd frequency components appear as differential signals.

10. The device according to claim 1, wherein each said switching section is a transistor.

11. A dc-dc converter, comprising:

two substantially identical single-ended EF₂ inverter sections coupled together with a shared ground and at least one AC input, wherein each inverter section comprises a shared tunable resonant network, and a switching section, and wherein said inverter sections are coupled to an output rectifier section thereby converting the AC input to at least one DC output,

wherein the switching sections are switched at about a same switching frequency, but with a phase difference of about 180 degrees,

wherein the shared tunable resonant network is independently tuned to an impedance seen by the respective switching section thereby providing independent tuning of even and odd components of the switching frequency.

12. The converter according to claim 11, wherein the rectifier section is a resonant push-pull rectifier section.

13. The converter according to claim 11, wherein said resonant network comprises a first resonator section, a second resonator section, and a third resonator section.

14. The converter according to claim 13, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of inductors and a shared capacitor, wherein the inductors are adjusted to control the impedance at odd harmonics and the shared capacitor is adjusted to control the impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.

15. The converter according to claim 13, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of capacitors and a shared inductor, wherein the capacitors are adjusted to control the impedance at odd harmonics and the shared inductor is adjusted to control the impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.

16. A method for converting electrical power, comprising:

providing at least one voltage source and at least one load;

coupling two single-ended EF₂ inverter sections together with a shared ground, wherein said inverter sections are coupled to said voltage source and said load, said inverter sections comprising a switch and a shared resonant tuning network; and

tuning an impedance of each of said inverter sections, wherein the impedance is one value for the even harmonics and one value for the odd harmonics, thereby tuning even and odd harmonics.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein tuning the impedance comprises adjusting components of the shared resonant tuning network for odd harmonics and then adjusting for even harmonics without affecting the odd harmonics.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the single-ended EF₂ inverter sections are substantially identical.

19. The method according to claim 16, wherein the switching sections are switched at about a same switching frequency, but with a phase difference of about 180 degrees.

20. The method according to claim 16, said shared resonant tuning network comprising a first resonator section, a second resonator section, and a third resonator section, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of inductors and a shared capacitor, further comprising adjusting the inductors to control an impedance at odd harmonics and adjusting the shared capacitor to control an impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.

21. The method according to claim 16, said shared resonant tuning network comprising a first resonator section, a second resonator section, and a third resonator section, wherein the second resonator section comprises a pair of capacitors and a shared inductor, further comprising adjusting the capacitors to control an impedance at odd harmonics and adjusting the shared inductor to control an impedance at even harmonics without affecting the impedance at odd harmonics.