An Open-Circuit Fault Diagnosis Method for LLC Converters

In electrified transportation systems, power system failures can lead to greater disasters. Therefore, the reliability of converters in transportation systems has been a concern. Fault-tolerant techniques are widely applied to ensure that converters can continue to supply loads under fault conditions. Fault diagnosis as a prerequisite for fault tolerance has also become a research hotspot. This paper proposes a fast method for fault diagnosis of high-frequency LLC converters. The proposed fault diagnosis method is based on the observation of the voltage across the resonant capacitor to determine and locate the faulty power switch, providing a basis for fault tolerance. This diagnosis method requires a voltage sensor, which is also necessary for some control methods. When applying these control methods, the proposed fault diagnosis method can be used without additional sensors, beneficial for cost reduction. A full-bridge LLC converter controlled by a digital signal processor was used as an experimental platform to verify the effectiveness and speed of the proposed diagnostic method. The results show that the proposed fault diagnosis method can achieve the fast diagnosis of high-frequency LLC converters in a short time and with only minimal computational resources.