I'm in the process of building an 8kW isolated DC/DC converter, full-bridge topology.
I'm seeing some interesting phenomena on the diodes. When each diode becomes reverse-biased, a voltage spike appears across the diode, before settling down to the expected DC bus voltage. These are 1800V fast diodes (320nS spec'd recovery time), and the spikes are hitting 1800V with only 350VDC on the secondary, well below my output voltage target. Increased deadtime doesn't help; the kick still appears when the diode is reverse-biased, and is just as large.
My suspicion is that the output choke is keeping the diodes forward biased during the dead time. Then when the transformer voltage starts to rise in the other half-cycle, the diode gets instantaneously reverse-biased long enough to appear as a short across the transformer winding. Then when the diode recovers, that current is cut off, causing the kick I'm seeing.
I've tried a few things. At one point, I added a flyback diode in parallel to my bridge.
I used the same fast-recovery diodes as are in my bridge. This had no apparent effect on the spikes. I then tried adding a .01 uF cap in parallel to my bridge.
This reduced the spikes to a more manageable level, but the reflected impedance of that cap caused significant problems on the primary. My snubber caps have doubled in temperature!
A few possibilities present themselves:
1) I've diagnosed the problem incorrectly. I'm 95% sure I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing, but I've been wrong before.
2) Use a synchronous rectifier. I shouldn't have reverse recovery issues with that. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any reverse-blocking JFETs in this power range, and there's no such thing as a reverse-blocking MOSFET. The only reverse-blocking IGBTs I can find in this power range have worse losses than the diodes.
EDIT: I've just realized I've been misunderstanding the nature of a synchronous rectifier. I don't need reverse-blocking FETs; the FETs will conduct drain-source.
3) Use zero-recovery diodes. Again, problems with losses and cost.
4) Snub the kicks. This looks like it would eat way too much power, on the order of 20% of my overall throughput.
5) Add saturable cores in line with the diodes. Two of the largest saturable cores I could find barely dented my kicks.
6) Use a zero-current-switching resonant topology. I have no experience in that area, but it sounds like if the current on the primary changes more smoothly, the voltage on the secondary should also change more smoothly, giving the diodes more time to recover.
Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? If so, how did you solve it? Edit: primary-side FET datasheet here.