A new ZVT–ZCT quasi-resonant DC link for soft switching inverters

In this article, the new ZVT–ZCT Quasi-Resonant DC Link, which ensures zero crossings at any time required for soft switching (SS) and provides zero voltage transition (ZVT) turn-on and zero current transition (ZCT) turn-off together for the main switch of active snubber cell in pulse width modulated or space vector modulated operation of inverter is presented. The new circuit combines the most desirable features of the circuits presented previously and overcomes most drawbacks of these circuits by using only one auxiliary switch with fewer other components. Consequently, new ZVT–ZCT Quasi-Resonant DC Link, which is verified by a prototype of a 1.2 kW and 50 kHz circuit, is analysed in detail. All semiconductor devices operate under SS, the main switch is subjected to no additional voltage and current stresses, and the stress on the auxiliary switch is very low in the proposed new inverter.     

A new ZVT-PWM DC-DC converter

In this paper, a new active snubber cell that overcomes most of the drawbacks of the normal "zero voltage transition-pulse width modulation" (ZVT-PWM) converter is proposed to contrive a new family of ZVT-PWM converters. A converter with the proposed snubber cell can also operate at light load conditions. All of the semiconductor devices in this converter are turned on and off under exact or near zero voltage switching (ZVS) and/or zero current switching (ZCS). No additional voltage and current stresses on the main switch and main diode occur. Also, the auxiliary switch and auxiliary diodes are subjected to voltage and current values at allowable levels. Moreover, the converter has a simple structure, low cost, and ease of control. A ZVT-PWM boost converter equipped with the proposed snubber cell is analyzed in detail. The predicted operation principles and theoretical analysis of the presented converter are verified with a prototype of a 2 kW and 50 kHz PWM boost converter with insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). In this study, a design procedure of the proposed active snubber cell is also presented. Additionally, at full output power in the proposed soft switching converter, the main switch loss is about 27% and the total circuit loss is about 36% of that in its counterpart hard switching converter, and so the overall efficiency, which is about 91% in the hard switching case, increases to about 97%     

Novel ZVT-PWM converters with active snubbers

An active snubber cell is proposed to contrive zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulsewidth-modulated (ZVT-PWM) converters. Except for the auxiliary switch, all active and passive semiconductor devices in a ZVT-PWM converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn on and turn off. The auxiliary switch operates at ZVS turn off and near zero current-switching (ZCS) turn on. An analytical study on a boost ZVT-PWM converter with the proposed active snubber cell is presented in detail. A 750 W 80 kHz prototype of the boost ZVT-PWM converter has been built in the laboratory to experimentally verify the analysis. Six basic ZVT-PWM converters can be easily created by attaching the proposed active snubber cells to conventional PWM converters. A detailed design procedure of the proposed active snubber cell is also presented in this paper     

一种新型软开关DC-DC PWM升压变换器设计

为提高转换效率并降低电源开关的电流应力,提出一种基于新型有源缓冲电路的PWM DC-DC升压变换器。该有源缓冲电路使用ZVT—ZCT软开关技术,分别提供了总开关ZVT开启及ZCT闭合、辅助开关ZCS开启及ZCT闭合。消除了总开关额外的电流及电压应力,消除了辅助开关电压应力,且有源缓冲电路的耦合电感降低了电流应力。另外,通过连续将二极管添加到辅助开关电路,防止来自共振电路的输入电流应力进入总开关。实验结果表明,相比传统的PWM变换器,新的DC-DC PWM升压变换器在满负荷时电流应力降低且总体效率能达到98.7%。     

Design and analysis of a novel zero-voltage-transition interleaved boost converter for renewable power applications

High-efficiency stepping up operation is an important feature of the converters used in renewable power applications due to the low voltage level of photo-voltaic arrays and fuel cells. Decreasing the switching losses of the converters is an effective solution for increasing the converter efficiency, especially in high-power applications. This article presents a novel zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) interleaved dc–dc boost converter that can be used in renewable power sources to reduce switching losses. The auxiliary circuit used in the proposed converter is composed of only one auxiliary switch and a minimum number of passive components without an important increase in the cost and complexity. The main advantage of the proposed converter is that it not only provides ZVT in the boost switches but also provides soft switching in the auxiliary switch. Another advantage of the proposed topology is that the semiconductor devices used in the converter do not have any additional voltage or current stresses. Also, it has a simple structure, low cost and ease of control. In this article, a detailed steady-state analysis of the proposed converter is presented. The theoretical analysis is verified via simulation and experimental studies which are in very good agreement.     

An improved ZCT-PWM DC-DC converter for high-power and frequency applications

In this paper, an improved active resonant snubber cell that overcomes most of the drawbacks of the normal zero-current transition (ZCT) pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) dc-dc converter is proposed. This snubber cell is especially suitable for an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) PWM converter at high power and frequency levels. The converter with the proposed snubber cell can operate successfully with soft switching under light-load conditions and at considerably high frequencies. The operation principles, a detailed steady-state analysis, and a snubber design procedure of a ZCT-PWM buck converter implemented with the proposed snubber cell are presented. Theoretical analysis is verified with a prototype of a 5-kW and 50-kHz IGBT-PWM buck converter. Additionally, at 90% output power, the overall efficiency of the proposed soft switching converter increases to about 98% from the value of 91% in the hard-switching case.     

Family of Zero-Current Transition PWM Converters

In this paper, a new auxiliary circuit is introduced for applying to buck, buck-boost, zeta, forward, and flyback converters. This auxiliary circuit provides a zero-current switching condition for all switching elements. The proposed zero-current transition (ZCT) pulsewidth-modulated buck converter is briefly described. Also, a ZCT flyback converter is analyzed, and its different operating modes are presented. Design considerations are explained, and a design example along with the experimental results of the ZCT flyback converter is presented.     

一种新型正激零电压零电流转换PWM DC/DC变换器

提出一种新型的零电压零电流转换(ZCZVT)的正激拓扑。拓扑工作频率为300kHz,能实现主开关管的零电压开通(ZVS)和零电流关断(ZCS),同时辅助开关管也能实现零电流关断(ZCS),且变压器的磁通复位不需要辅助绕组。文章进行了拓扑的稳态分析,并且讨论了谐振电路的参数设计。最后,在研制一台48V输入、12V/100W输出样机的基础上,实验验证这种新型正激ZCZVT PWM DC-DC变换器的软开关特性。     

A novel lossless passive snubber for soft-switching boost-typeconverters

A novel lossless passive snubber is proposed for soft switching boost-type converters. The proposed snubber does not use any auxiliary switches, but uses two identical snubber capacitors which are charged in parallel at turn off of the main switch and discharged in series at turn on automatically, and the discharged energy is recovered effectively (more than 95% recovery) into the output capacitor. Thus, the snubber provides zero-voltage switching for the converter main switch, reducing both the turn-off losses and the electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise, which improves the converter performance. The experimental results of a 20 kHz 600 W DC-DC boost converter and a single-phase AC-DC boost rectifier with the new snubber are presented     

A true ZCZVT commutation cell for PWM converters

This paper introduces a true zero-current and zero-voltage transition (ZCZVT) commutation cell for DC-DC pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converters operating with an input voltage less than half the output voltage. It provides zero-current switching (ZCS) and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) simultaneously, at both turn on and turn off of the main switch and ZVS for the main diode. The proposed soft-switching technique is suitable for both minority and majority carrier semiconductor devices and can be implemented in several DC-DC PWM converters. The ZCZVT commutation cell is placed out of the power path, and, therefore, there are no voltage stresses on power semiconductor devices. The commutation cell consists of a few auxiliary devices, rated at low power, and it is only activated during the main switch commutations. The ZCZVT commutation cell, applied to a boost converter, has been analyzed theoretically and verified experimentally. A 1 kW boost converter operating at 40 kHz with an efficiency of 97.9% demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed commutation cell     

Resonant link bidirectional power converter. I. Resonant circuit

This paper proposes a novel resonant circuit capable of PWM operation with zero switching losses. The resonant circuit is aimed at providing zero voltage intervals in the DC link of the PWM converter during the required converter device switching periods, and it gives minimum DC bus voltage stresses and minimum peak resonant current. It requires only two additional switches compared to a conventional PWM converter. It is observed that the resonant circuit guarantees the soft switching of all the switching power devices of converters including the switches for resonant operation. Simulation results and experimental results are presented to verify the operating principles     

A new two-quadrant zero-current transition converter for DC motor drives

A new two-quadrant (2Q) zero-current-transition (ZCT) converter with the capabilities of 2Q power flow and ZCT switching profile for DC motor drives is presented. It possesses the advantages that both the main and auxiliary switches can operate with zero-current switching (ZCS), reduced switching losses and stresses, minimum voltage and current stresses as well as minimum circulating energy during both the motoring and regenerating modes. It also offers simple circuit topology, minimum component count and low cost. This converter is particularly useful for DC traction systems in which both motoring and regenerative braking are desired to have high efficiency. The corresponding theoretical analysis and its high-efficiency performance are supported by both simulation and experimental results.     

An improved boost PWM soft-single-switched converter with lowvoltage and current stresses

This paper presents an improved regenerative soft turn-on and turn-off snubber applied to a boost pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converter. The boost soft-single-switched converter proposed, which has only a single active switch, is able to operate with soft switching in a PWM way without high voltage and current stresses. This is achieved by using an auxiliary inductor, which is magnetically coupled with the main inductor of the converter. In order to illustrate the operating principle of this new converter, a detailed study, including simulations as well as experimental results, is carried out. The validity of this new converter is guaranteed by the obtained results     

A new family of isolated converters that uses the magnetizinginductance of the transformer to achieve zero-voltage switching

A new family of isolated, zero voltage switched power converters which utilizes the magnetizing inductance of the transformer to achieve zero voltage turn-on of the primary switches is proposed. By employing saturable inductor(s) on the secondary side, soft turn-off of the output rectifier(s) is obtained with a minimum circulating energy flowing through the power converter. The proposed converters can operate either with a variable or a constant switching frequency. A complete DC analysis and design guidelines for the half-bridge topology are described, and the performance of a 100 W experimental power converter is presented     

Novel zero-current-transition PWM converters

A new family of zero-current-transition (ZCT) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converters is proposed. The new family of converters implements zero-current turn-off for power transistor(s) without increasing voltage/current stresses and operates at a fixed frequency. The proposed converters are deemed most suitable for high-power applications where the minority-carrier semiconductor devices (such as IGBTs, BJTs, and MCTs) are predominantly used as the power switches. Theoretical analysis is verified on a 100 kHz, 1 kW ZCT-PWM boost converter using an IGBT     

高频软开关PWM功率变换技术的发展与现状

本文介绍了三类零电压软件开关ＰＷＭ变换器和两类零电流软件开关ＰＷＭ变换器的特点和工作原理。     

New conceptual three-phase current-fed soft switching pulse width modulation converter with switched capacitor type resonant dc link

This paper presents a novel prototype of three-phase current-fed PWM converter with a switched capacitor type resonant dc link snubber circuit, which can basically operate under a principle of zero current soft switching commutation. The optimum PWM pattern-based control scheme proposed by the authors is effectively applied for this active converter. In this paper, the steady-state operating principle of a new converter circuit treated here is described. The practical design procedure of this converter is discussed from a theoretical point of view. The feasible experiment to confirm zero current soft switching commutation of this converter is concretely implemented and evaluated herein.     

A soft-single-switched forward converter with low stresses and two derived structures

This paper proposes a soft-single-switched forward converter with low current and voltage stresses and two derived converters. These converters operate with a nondissipative snubber in ZCS mode at turning on and ZVS mode at turning off. The output voltage is controlled by using PWM technique. It is carried out a detailed study, where operating principles and some simulation and experimental results are presented.     

A novel ZCZVT forward converter with synchronous rectification

A novel zero-current-zero-voltage transition (ZCZVT) forward converter with synchronous rectification (SR) is presented in this paper. The proposed converter is operating at 300kHz and processes the features of both zero-voltage transition (ZVT) at turn on and zero-current transition (ZCT) at turn off for the main switch. The auxiliary switch also achieves zero-current switching (ZCS). The flux of transformer can be reset without tertiary winding. The steady-state analysis and design considerations are investigated in detail in this work. Moreover, a self-driven synchronous rectification is also added to the ZCZVT forward converter to reduce the conduction losses of the output rectifier. For 48-V input and 12-V 100-W output, a prototype of the proposed converter for 300-kHz switching is built to verify the theoretical analysis. Finally, the power losses are well estimated. The overall efficiency of the proposed converter is achieved at 89% at full load.     

Novel zero-voltage-transition PWM multiphase converters

Novel zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulse-width-modulation (PWM) multiphase converters are presented. To construct a ZVT multiphase converter in a conventional way, it is necessary to add the auxiliary circuits with as many number of phases. In the proposed converter, only one auxiliary circuit provides the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) for main switches and diodes of all phases. So, the new converters are cost effective and attractive for high-performance and high power-density conversion applications. Operation, features, and characteristics of the two-phase buck converter are illustrated and verified on a 4-kW 100-kHz insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)-based (a MOSFET for the auxiliary switch) experimental circuit