DESIGN OF ON-BOARD CHARGER FOR PLUG-IN HYBRID

ELECTRIC VEHICLE
M. Grenier, M. G. Hosseini Aghdam, T. Thiringer
Chalmers University of Techology, Gothenburg, Sweden

Keywords: on-board charger, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, demand. In a series design, the primary engine is connected to
power factor corrector, full-bridge converter, efficiency. a generator that produces electricity. The electricity charges
the batteries, which drive an electric motor that powers the
Abstract wheels. HEVs can also be built to use the series configuration
at low speeds and the parallel configuration for highway
The main objective of this paper is to present to design of an driving and acceleration [1-2]. A plugͲin hybrid electrical
onͲboard charger with the aim of charging a plug-in vehicle vehicle (PHEV) is a parallel/series hybrid vehicle where the
battery. This charger is able to control the values of the load propulsion battery reloaded by a connection to an electric- al
voltage and current and then, maintain them at a desirable network.
value. A first converter is used to convert the grid 50 Hz Battery chargers often are designed to be used as off-board
electrical quantities into dc quantities. A second converter arrangements because of the large size and high weight
adjusts the levels to the values required by the battery and resulting from the required inductors, capacitors, cooling
moreover, provides a galvanic isolation. The control of the system, and possible isolating transformer. On the other hand,
first converter is realized by using a power factor corrector. the use of battery chargers with an on-board arrangement
The control of the second converter allows supplying the would allow battery charging at any time this is needed, given
battery with correct voltage and current values. This method the availability of the supply grid [3]. The use of on-board
is one of the most efficient to design an electronic supply with chargers would increase acceptance of electrical vehicles
a low current harmonic impact to the grid. The choice of the (EVs), particularly in the case of light-weight EVs devoted to
structure and the choice of the components are explained. urban mobility [4]. Research is already being done on the
Determination of the efficiency of the onͲboard charger, onͲboard chargers, and one important objective is to increase
loading cost and loading time needed is investigated in this the energy efficiency and further reduce the power quality
paper. impact. This charger can also be made bidirectional in order
to be useful as a power supply or be connected to the grid to
1 Introduction give power.
The main objective of this paper is to design an onͲboard
Over the past decade, changes have taken place that have charger after having compared two different technologies.
drawn more attention to electric and hybrid electric vehicles. This charger should be energy efficient, have a low weight
Increasing oil prices and worries of a diminishing oil supply and have a low volume.
are creating a need for alternatives to traditional gasoline and The paper is organized as follows: First the structure and
diesel engines. Consequently, more and more companies in operation of an on-board charger is briefly described. Then,
the transportation industry are introducing electric or hybrid the practical design of the on-board charger is explained. In
electric vehicles. Present-day hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) this part the choice of the components and design of the
are equipped with internal combustion engines (ICEs) and magnetic components is performed. Finally, the efficiency of
electric motors. A hybrid's ICE engine, as in any ICE- the on-board charger based on different control strategies and
powered car, produces power through continuous, controlled structures is computed and analyzed.
explosions that push down pistons connected to a rotating
crankshaft. That rotating force (torque) is ultimately 2 The structure of the on-board charger
transmitted to the vehicle's wheels. A hybrid's electric motor
is energized by a battery, which produces power through a Fig. 1 shows a general diagram of the on-board charger with
chemical reaction. The battery is continuously recharged by a the different converters, and also with the grid and the battery.
generator that-like the alternator of a conventional car-is The on-board charger consists of two parts: power factor
driven by the ICE [1-2]. corrector (PFC), and dc/dc converter. A PFC is an ac to dc
Hybrids can have a parallel design, a series design, or a converter that is made up by an ac to dc converter and a dc to
combination of both. In a parallel design, the energy dc boost converter. The aim of a PFC is to take a current close
conversion unit and electric propulsion system are connected to sinusoidal waveform from the network. An important
directly to the vehicle's wheels. The primary engine is used feature of the PFC control is a voltage sensor which measures
for highway driving; the electric motor provides added power the load voltage and also a current sensor which measures the
during hill climbs, acceleration, and other periods of high
inductor current in the boost converter. Using this and the knowledge if a step-down or step-up converter is
information, the PFC control part can be realized. Fig. 2 required. It is also necessary to know if isolation is needed. In
shows the input current of the on-board charger and the grid the on-board charger, the converter has to be a step-down
voltage. As it can be seen in this figure, the input current is in voltage and a galvanic isolation is required. All these
phase with the grid voltage, which means that only an active information make the following choice for the structure which
power is taken. The output voltage of the PFC (dc link can be viewed in Fig. 4. The battery voltage is plotted in Fig.
voltage capacitor) is shown in Fig. 3. 5.
The battery voltage varies according to the kind of the
plugͲin hybrid vehicle. For a car, this voltage could for
example be between 300 V and 400 V. The peak power is in
the region of 50 kW, and the energy density could be between
5 and 20 kWh. For information, an electric car of ordinary
size needs about 2 kWh to cover 10 km. The batteries can
have about 1000 cycles of charge. These figures are rough
values, and depending on the battery technology, the usage of
the battery (small car, truck, …) and other parameters.

Fig. 1. General diagram of the on-board charger.

Fig. 4. Structure of the full bridge converter.

Fig. 2. Input current (red) and grid voltage (blue).

Fig. 5. The voltage of battery.

3 Design procedure and example

The PDF format will be the final format under which the
papers will appear in the Proceedings.
The design procedure will be carried out in detail for the on-
board charger.
Grid characteristics: 3700 W, 16 A, and 50 Hz
PFC rectifier bridge:
Diode maximum voltage / current: 325.30 V / 22.60 A.
Fairchild Semiconductor RURP3060 is used in this converter
Fig. 3. The output voltage of the power factor corrector. [5].

The choice of the dc/dc converters depends on several factors. PFC dc/dc boost converter:
Mainly, it depends on the power which has to be transmitted Diode maximum voltage / current: 450 V / 22.60 A.
IXYS DSEP29-06A is used in this converter [6]. full-bridge converter with duty cycle control (DCC),
respectively. Finally the efficiency of the on-board charger
Transistor maximum voltage / current: 450 V / 22.60 A. with 300 V and 400 V batteries can be viewed in Figs. 9 and
Infineon IKW30N60T is used in this converter [7]. 10. With a 400 V battery, the efficiency is about the same
whatever the control method. When the voltage is lower, the
Inductor: efficiency with the DCC is better than with the PSC.
VDClink Whatever the kind of control method, the efficiency of battery
L 1.24 mH (1) of 400 V is better than efficiency of battery of 300 V. The
4 f sw 'I
efficiency of the onͲboard charger is varying according to the
The shape of the core is decided to be a toroid shaped core
battery voltage. That means that during the load, the
(Amidon T300AͲ26) [8]. efficiency is varying because the battery voltage is increasing.
Table I shows the efficiency for a battery voltage level of 400
Capacitor: V with a power outlet capacity 10 A, and 16 A with the two
Vin 2 ˜ I in 2 different control strategies. The following hypothesis can be
C 2.17 mF (2)
2'V DClink Z V DClink made: during the load, the battery voltage increases with a
The capacitor will be an aluminium electrolytic capacitor for linear progression. As it can be seen in this table, for a battery
the PFC dc link (EPCOS B43584) [9]. of 400 V and whatever the input current, the duty cycle
control has better efficiency.
Full-bridge dc/ac converter: Figs. 11 and 12 show the efficiency in unidirectional and
Diode maximum voltage / current: 450 V / 16 A. bidirectional converters with the phase shift control. Table II
Fairchild Semiconductor RURP3060 is used in this converter. shows the efficiency with a power outlet capacity 10 A, and
Transistor maximum voltage / current: 450 V / 16 A. 16 A. It is obvious that the bidirectional on-board charger has
Infineon IKW30N60T is used in this converter. a better efficiency than the unidirectional charger.
Weight and volume of the main components of the on- board
Full-bridge ac/dc converter: charger:
Diode maximum voltage / current: 450 V / 16 A. The components used to calculate the weight and volume are
IXYS Semiconductor DSEP29-06A is used in this converter. the heat sinks, the transformer, the inductor, and the dc link
capacitor.
Design of the transformer:
The core used for this transformer is two ETD cores put W Wcap  Wind  Wtrans  Whs 2.85 kg (5)
together (EPCOS ETD 59/31/22) [9]. The primary and
secondary turns are wounded on the centre leg. V Vcap  Vind  Vtrans  Vhs 1.57 dm 3 (6)
The number of turns that is needed for the primary side can be
calculated by:
It is assumed that these components represent about 60% of
V pri the whole on-board charger. Therefore, the weight and
L 21.09 turns (3)
A Z Bˆ
core core
volume of the on-board charger are 4.75 kg, and 2.70 dm3,
The turn ratio of the transformer is 1 so the number of respectively. This volume can be contained, for example, in a
secondary turns is equal to the number of primary turns. box of the following dimensions:
N pri N sec 21 turns (4) Length = 22.5 cm, Width = 12 cm, Height = 10 cm.

Output filter:
The current ripple is chosen to be about 15% of the nominal
rms inductor current. For a battery voltage of 400 V, the
inductor current is 9.25 A and for a battery voltage of 300 V,
the inductor current is 12.75 A. This gives an inductor value
of 2.70 mH, and 3.05 mH, respectively. The shape of the core
is decided to be a toroids shaped core (Amidon T300AͲ26).
The capacitor voltage is identical to the battery voltage so its
value is varying according to the battery voltage. The
capacitor voltage ripple is chosen to be at 5% and the
frequency is 20 kHz. For a battery of 300 V and 400 V, the
values of capacitor are 3.30 µF, and 1.74 µF, respectively.
The capacitor will be a film capacitor for the output filter
(EPCOS MKP DC link).
Efficiency of the on-board charger:
Figs. 6, 7, and 8 show the losses in the PFC, in the full-bridge
dc/dc converter with phase shift control (PSC), and in the Fig. 6. Losses in the PFC.
 Fig. 10. Efficiency of the on-board charger with a 400 V
Fig. 7. Losses in the full-bridge converter with the PSC.
battery.

Table I. Efficiency for a 400 V battery.

Duty Cycle Phase Shift

Control Control
K disloaded 93.63% 93.37%

16 A K loaded 94.56% 94.53%

K average 94.01% 93.95%

K disloaded 94.67% 94.48%

10 A K loaded 95.37% 95.37%

K average 95.02% 94.93%

Fig. 8. Losses in the full-bridge converter with the DCC.

Fig. 9. Efficiency of the on-board charger with a 300 V Fig. 11. Efficiency in the unidirectional on-board charger.
battery.
 distance covered during the year is assumed to be 20000 km.
This working hypothesis is setting:
The PHEV uses only electrical energy during the short
journeys (lower than 50 km)
During the year, 10 journeys with a distance of 500 km, 10
journeys with a distance of 150 km, 10 journeys with a
distance of 100 km, and all the other days, a distance of 40
km is covered.
The price of petrol is varying between 1 and 1.5 € a liter
(depending on the price of the oil barrel). To determine the
cost during one year, the price of the petrol is assumed to be
1.25 €. A medium car consumes about 6 liters of petrol for
one hundred kilometres. To make the 20000 km, a car needs
20000 km * 6 liter/ 100 km = 1200 liter. Therefore the cost
for one year of petrol is about 1.25 € * 1200 liter = 1500 €.
The price of the petrol is still 1.25 € per liter. As it mentioned
before, for the shorter journey (lower than 50 km), the car is
Fig. 12. Efficiency in the bidirectional on-board charger. only propelled with electrical energy. For the other journey,
car is propelled by petrol and electrical energies. It is assumed
Table II. Efficiency at 16 A and 10A. that a hybrid electrical vehicle reduces its petrol consumption
by 25% compared to a car of same range.
Unidirectional on- Bidirectional on- Cost for the journey of 40 km:
board charger board charger As it computed before, the cost of load for one journey of 40
K disloaded 93.37% 94.95% km is 0.85 €. It is assumed that in a year 330 journeys of this
type are made. Therefore 330 * 0.85 € = 281 €.
16 A K loaded 94.53% 96.13%
Cost of the other journey:
K average 93.95% 95.54%
These journeys are 30 of them. For this journey, the cost is
K disloaded 94.48% 96.14% determined by the petrol consumption during the journey and
the cost of the load of the battery. These 30 journeys represent
10 A K loaded 95.37% 97.02% 7500 km. Cost of petrol for these journeys: 1.25 € * 338 liter
K average 94.93% 96.50%
= 422.5 €.

Cost of electricity for these journeys:

4 Comparison of PHEVs and petrol cars At the end of the journey, the battery has to be fully charged
in order to be used for a classical journey. It means that 30
A plugͲin hybrid electrical vehicle (PHEV) battery size could loads have to be adding to the petrol cost to have the total cost
have between 6 and 16 kWh. In order to determine the for these journeys. The hypothesis is that at the end of the
charging time, a battery of 14 kWh is used. It can be day, the SOC is about 50%. Therefore Energy needed to load
considered that the battery is empty when the state of charge the battery is 7 kWh. Finally the energy taken on the grid is:
(SOC) level is 30% of the total range. An average drive Wbatt 7
distance is about 40 km a day. A PHEV uses about 2 kWh to Wtaken 7.44 kWh (8)
K 0.941
cover 10 km. The efficiency of this system is 94.1% under
16A.
The energy needed to load the battery for a 40 km journey is The price to load a battery fully disloaded is 30 * 0.1 € * 7.44
4*2 kWh = 8 kWh. The energy taken on the grid is: kWh = 22.5 €.
Wbatt The cost for one year of journeys with a PHEV is 281 € +
8
Wtaken 8.5 kWh (7) 422.5 € + 22.5 € = 726 €.
K 0.941 The driving energy cost, for one year with a PHEV, is about
726 €. This cost is really lower than the one for a petrol car
The price of 1 kWh of electricity provided by the Swedish (1500 € a year). It means that the cost reduction with a PHEV
Electricity Company is about 1 SEK. If we considered that is about 51% per year.
the change ratio between SEK and €, the price for 1 kWh is
about 0.1 €. The price to load a battery after a 40 km journey Forecasting for 10 years:
is 0.1 € * 8.5 kWh = 0.85 €. The price to load a battery is The hypothesis is same that previously. The cost of the fuel
about 0.85 €. for ten years is 10 * 1500 € = 15000 €. The cost of the fuel
In this part, the price for one year will be determined. On one and electricity for ten years is 10 * 726 € = 7260 €. Therefore
hand, the price for a PHEV will be calculated, and on another the savings cost with PHEV is 7740 € for ten years.
hand, the price for a petrol car. It is assumed that the total
5 Conclusion
In this paper, the theory of the onͲboard charger is
investigated, including the power factor corrector, and the full
bridge converter, power and control part. The components of
the power part, the heat sinks are chosen and the magnetic
components, snubbers and filter are designed. The losses in
each component are calculated in order to determine the
efficiency of the on-board charger. The efficiency varies
function of the control method and in this converter the duty
cycle control has a better efficiency; the efficiency is 94.1%
for a 400 V battery with a 16 A grid current. The approximate
weight of the onͲboard charger is 4.75 kg and the volume is
roughly 2.70 dm3. If we considered that the length of life of
the cars is ten years, the savings are roughly 7700 € with a
PHEV.

References
[1] A. Emadi, K. Rajashekara, S. S.Williamson, and S. M.
Lukic, “Topological Overview of Hybrid Electric and
Fuel Cell Vehicular Power System Architectures and
Configurations,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 763-770, 2005.
[2] C. Mi, F. Z. Peng, K. J. Kelly, M. O'Keefe, and V.
Hassani, “Topology, Design, Analysis and Thermal
Management of Power Electronics for Hybrid Electric
Vehicle Applications,” International Journal of Electric
and Hybrid Vehicles, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 276-294, 2008.
[3] L. Solero, “Nonconventional On-Board Charger for
Electric Vehicle Propulsion Batteries,” IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 50, No. 1,
pp. 144-149, 2001.
[4] O. Honorati, F. Caricchi, F. Crescimbini, and L. Solero,
“Lightweight, Compact, Three-Wheel Electric Vehicle
for Urban Mobility,” Proceeding of International
Conference on Power Electronics Drives and Energy
Systems for Industrial Growth, 1998.
[5] Fairchild Semiconductors, www.fairchildsemi.com/.
[6] IXYS Corporation, www.ixys.com/.
[7] Infineon Technologies AG, www.infineon.com/.
[8] Amidon Corporation, www.amidoncorp.com/.
[9] EPCOS AG, www.epcos.com/.