Contactless Power Transfer System for Rapid Charger of Electric Vehicle

A contactless power transfer system for charging electric vehicles requires a high efficiency, a large air gap, and a good tolerance to lateral misalignment and needs to be compact and lightweight. A double-sided winding 10 kW transformer based on a 1.5 kW H-shaped core transformer was developed for a rapid charger. Even though the transformer capacity was increased, the dimensions of the 10 kW transformer were almost the same as those of the 1.5 kW transformer. In this paper, the design concept for this 10 kW transformer and the results of experimental are described. The transformer was found to exhibit more than 94% efficiency with a mechanical gap of 70mm. Even for gap change and position change, an efficiency of over 92% was maintained. In a contactless power transfer system with a series resonant capacitor, the primary terminal voltage increases with increasing power. This overvoltage may lead to the problem of breakdown voltage of capacitor and the breakdown of winding insulation. To prevent such an overvoltage occurring, it is suggested that the primary winding and the series capacitor are split into two pieces or more respectively, and the split windings and capacitors are alternately connected in a series. Electric vehicles using a contactless power transformer for rapid charging would also uses normal charging. Therefore, the 10 kW transformer was designed to be compatible with the 1.5 kW transformer. Consequently, electric vehicles equipped with the 10 kW transformer can charge even using a 1.5 kW ground transformer, without decrease efficiency.