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     

Soft switching active snubbers for DC/DC converters

A soft-switching active snubber is proposed to reduce the turn-off losses of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) in a buck power converter. The soft-switching snubber provides zero-voltage switching for the IGBT, thereby reducing its high turn-off losses due to the current tailing. The proposed snubber uses an auxiliary switch to discharge the snubber capacitor. This auxiliary switch also operates at zero-voltage and zero-current switching. The size of the auxiliary switch compared to the main switch makes this snubber a good alternative to the conventional snubber or even to passive low-loss snubbers. The use of the soft-switching active snubber permits the IGBT to operate at high frequencies with an improved RBSOA. In the experimental results reported for a 1 kW, 40 kHz prototype, combined switching/snubbing losses are reduced by 36% through the use of the active snubber compared to a conventional RCD snubber. The use of an active snubber allows recovery of part of the energy stored in the snubber capacitor during turn-off. The generic snubber cell for the buck power converter is generalized to support the common nonisolated DC/DC power converters (buck, boost, buck-boost, Cuk, sepic, zeta) as well as isolated DC/DC power converters (forward, flyback, Cuk, and sepic)     

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%     

A New Family of Zero-Current-Switching (ZCS) PWM Converters

A new family of zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converters which uses a new ZCS-PWM switch cell is presented in this paper. The main switch and auxiliary switch operate at ZCS turn-on and turn-off, and all the passive semiconductor devices in the ZCS-PWM converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off. Besides operating at constant frequency and with reduced commutation losses, these new converters have no additional current stress in comparison to the hard-switching converter counterpart. The new family of ZCS-PWM converters is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The PWM switch model and state-space averaging approach is used to estimate and examine the steady-state and dynamic character of the system. The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter, rated 1 kW and operating at 30 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters.     

A unified approach to modeling, synthesizing, and analyzingquasi-resonant converters

This paper presents a general method of modeling, synthesizing, and analyzing quasi-resonant converters (QRCs), including actively clamped QRCs. First, the concept of the pulse-width modulation (PWM) switch model is generalized to encompass all PWM (nonisolated) converters. Then, by adding inductor-capacitor (LC) elements and auxiliary switches into the PWM switch, QRC families are synthesized. DC and small signal analyses can be carried out based on these switch models. Furthermore, the duality relationship between zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) and zero-current-switching (ZCS) QRCs is established systematically and rigorously     

New family of zero-current-switching PWM converters using a new zero-current-switching PWM auxiliary circuit

A new family of zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) converters using a new ZCS-PWM auxiliary circuit is presented in this paper. The main switch and auxiliary switch operate at ZCS turn-on and turn-off, and the all-passive semiconductor devices in the ZCS-PWM converters operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off. Besides operating at constant frequency and reducing commutation losses, these new converters have no additional current stress and conduction loss in the main switch in comparison to the hard-switching converter counterpart. The PWM switch model and state-space averaging approach is used to estimate and examine the steady-state and dynamic character of the system. The new family of ZCS-PWM converters is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter, rated 1.6 kW and operating at 30 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters.     

A new ZVT-ZCT-PWM DC-DC converter

In this paper, a new active snubber cell is proposed to contrive a new family of pulse width modulated (PWM) converters. This snubber cell provides zero voltage transition (ZVT) turn on and zero current transition (ZCT) turn off together for the main switch of a converter. Also, the snubber cell is implemented by using only one quasi resonant circuit without an important increase in the cost and complexity of the converter. New ZVT-ZCT-PWM converter equipped with the proposed snubber cell provides most the desirable features of both ZVT and ZCT converters presented previously, and overcomes most the drawbacks of these converters. Subsequently, the new converter can operate with soft switching successfully at very wide line and load ranges and at considerably high frequencies. Moreover, all semiconductor devices operate under soft switching, the main devices do not have any additional voltage and current stresses, and the stresses on the auxiliary devices are at low levels. Also, the new converter has a simple structure, low cost and ease of control. In this study, a detailed steady state analysis of the new converter is presented, and this theoretical analysis is verified exactly by a prototype of a 1-kW and 100-kHz boost converter.     

An improved ZCS-PWM commutation cell for IGBT's application

An improved zero-current-switching pulsewidth-modulation (ZCS-PWM) commutation cell is proposed, which is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as the power switches. It provides ZCS operation for active switches with low-current stress without voltage stress and PWM operating at constant frequency. The main advantage of this cell is a substantial reduction of the resonant current peak through the main switch during the commutation process. Therefore, the RMS current through it is very close to that observed in the hard-switching PWM converters. Also, small ratings auxiliary components can be used. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed ZCS-PWM commutation cell, it was applied to a boost converter. Operating principles, theoretical analysis, design guidelines and a design example are described and verified by experimental results obtained from a prototype operating at 40 kHz, with an input voltage rated at 155 V and 1 kW output power. The measured efficiency of the improved ZCS-PWM boost converter is presented and compared with that of hard-switching boost converter and with some ZCS-PWM boost converters presented in the literature. Finally, this paper presents the application of the proposed soft-switching technique in DC-DC nonisolated power converters     

Modeling PWM DC/DC converters out of basic converter units

An alternative approach to modeling pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) DC/DC converters out of basic converter units (BCUs) is presented in this paper. Typical PWM DC/DC converters include the well-known buck, boost, buck-boost, Cuk, Zeta, and Sepic. With proper reconfiguration, these converters can be represented in terms of either buck or boost converter and linear devices, thus, the buck and boost converters are named BCUs. The PWM converters are, consequently, categorized into buck and boost families. With this categorization, the small-signal models of these converters are readily derived in terms of h parameter (for buck family) and g parameter (for boost family). Using the proposed approach, not only can one find a general configuration for converters in a family, but one can yield the same small-signal models as those derived from the direct state-space averaging method. Additionally, modeling of quasi-resonant converters and multiresonant converters can be simplified when adopting the proposed approach     

A family of high power density unregulated bus converters

This paper begins by reviewing current bus converters and exploring their limitations. Next, a family of inductor-less bus converters is proposed to overcome the limitations. In the new bus converters, magnetizing current is used to achieve zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on for all switches. The resonant concept is used to achieve nearly zero-current-switching (ZCS) turn-off for the primary switches and no body diode loss for the synchronous rectifiers (SRs). Meanwhile, the self-driven method can be easily applied to save drive loss of SRs. Based on these concepts, a full-bridge bus converter is built in the quarter-brick size to verify the analysis. The experimental results indicate that it can achieve 95.5% efficiency at 500-W, 12-V/45-A output. Compared with industry products, this topology can dramatically increase the power density. These concepts are also applied to nonisolated dc/dc converters. As an example, a resonant Buck converter is proposed and experimentally demonstrated.     

A novel active soft switching snubber designed for boost converter

A novel active snubber for the boost converter is presented in this paper. The main novelty in this solution is that auxiliary (snubber) switch takes part in energy transfer from source to output. Although equal currents do not flow through the boost and snubber switches they operate in parallel during most of the time they are turned on. Zero-voltage turn-off and zero-current turn-on for both switches, and reduced reverse-recovery-related losses in the boost switch and diode are achieved as well. Very simple and reliable control circuit is employed because nonisolated gate-drive signals are the same for both switches.     

Interleaved ZVS Converter With Ripple-Current Cancellation

In this paper, an interleaved soft-switching converter with ripple-current cancellation is presented to achieve zero- voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on and load current sharing. In order to achieve ZVS turn-on, an active snubber is connected in parallel with the primary winding of the transformer. The energy stored in the transformer leakage inductance and magnetizing inductance can be recovered so that the peak voltage stress of switching devices is limited. The resonance at the transition interval is used to realize ZVS turn-on of all switches. In order to achieve three-level pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) scheme, an addition fast-recovery diode is used in the converter. Three-level PWM scheme can reduce the ac ripple current on the output inductor such that the output inductor can be reduced. The current-doubler rectifier is adopted in the secondary side of the transformer to reduce the transformer secondary-winding current and output voltage ripple by canceling the current ripple of two output inductors. The output voltage is controlled at the desired value using the interleaved PWM scheme. These features make the proposed converter suitable for the dc-dc converter with high output current. The operation principles, steady state analysis, and design equations of the proposed converter are provided in detail. Finally, experiments based on a 600-W (12 V/50 A) prototype are provided to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed converter.     

A new active clamping zero-voltage switching PWM current-fed half-bridge converter

A new active clamping zero-voltage switching (ZVS) pulse-width modulation (PWM) current-fed half-bridge converter (CFHB) is proposed in this paper. Its active clamping snubber (ACS) can not only absorb the voltage surge across the turned-off switch, but also achieve the ZVS of all power switches. Moreover, it can be applied to all current-fed power conversion topologies and its operation as well as structure is very simple. Since auxiliary switches in the snubber circuit are switched in a complementary way to main switches, an additional PWM IC is not necessary. In addition, it does not need any clamp winding and auxiliary circuit besides additional two power switches and one capacitor while the conventional current-fed half bridge converter has to be equipped with two clamp windings, two ZVS circuits, and two snubbers. Therefore, it can ensure the higher operating frequency, smaller-sized reactive components, lower cost of production, easier implementation, and higher efficiency. The operational principle, theoretical analysis, and design considerations are presented. To confirm the operation, validity, and features of the proposed circuit, experimental results from a 200-W, 24-200Vdc prototype are presented.     

Analysis of high voltage step-up nonisolated DC–DC boost converters

A high voltage step-up nonisolated DC–DC converter based on coupled inductors suitable to photovoltaic (PV) systems applications is proposed in this paper. Considering that numerous approaches exist to extend the voltage conversion ratio of DC–DC converters that do not use transformers, a detailed comparison is also presented among the proposed converter and other popular topologies such as the conventional boost converter and the quadratic boost converter. The qualitative analysis of the coupled-inductor-based topology is developed so that a design procedure can be obtained, from which an experimental prototype is implemented to validate the theoretical assumptions.     

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.     

级联式Buck-Boost校正电路在高压电子镇流器中的应用

本文提出了一种带有无源无损缓冲结构的级联式buck-boost校正电路,并成功地应用在高压式电子镇流器中.缓冲电路通过抑制反向恢复电流所引起的di/dt和漏源极电压的dv/dt,有效地减少了开关损耗和EMI噪音.Buck电路中的IGBT实现零电流开通和零电压关断,同时续流二极管也工作在零电压状态.研制的380 V交流输入,400 V直流输出,额定功率600W的实验样机,其功率因数达0.98,THD小于11%.     

Application of the current-injected modeling approach toquasi-resonant converters

This paper describes how the current-injected (CI) method, which has been applied only to pulse-width modulation (PWM) DC-DC power converters, can be extended to quasi-resonant (QR) power converters. The methodology for extending this small-signal modeling approach is described in detail. It is also shown that QR dynamic models are easy to obtain since they are derived directly from PWM power converter models. These new models result in a unified block diagram from which zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) or zero-current-switching (ZCS) transfer functions of the basic topologies, such as buck, boost, and buck-boost operated in half-wave (HW) or full-wave (FW) modes, are found. As an application of this method, a ZVS boost power converter and ZCS boost power converter were fabricated and tested. In addition, small-signal models of these power converters were derived with the help of the state-space averaging (SSA) method. The agreement of the CI method simulations with the experimental results for the two QR power converters is comparable or better than that of the SSA method     

An improved soft-switching PWM FB DC/DC converter for reducingconduction losses

An improved soft-switching topology of a full-bridge (FB) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) DC/DC converter is described. The new topology employs an energy-recovery snubber to minimize a circulating current flowing through the transformer and switching devices. By using an energy-recovery snubber instead of adding a tapped inductor and a saturable reactor to reduce RMS current stress, the converter achieves zero-current switching (ZCS) for the right leg due to the minimized circulating current and achieves zero-voltage switching (ZVS) for the left leg due to the reflected output current during the interval of left leg transition. Both analysis and experiments are performed to verify the proposed topology by implementing a 7 kW (120 VDC, 58 A) 30 kHz insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) based experimental circuit     

A zero-voltage-switched PWM boost converter with an energyfeedforward auxiliary circuit

A zero-voltage-switched (ZVS) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) boost converter with an energy feedforward auxiliary circuit is proposed in this paper. The auxiliary circuit, which is a resonant circuit consisting of a switch and passive components, ensures that the converter's main switch and boost diode operate with soft switching. This converter can function with PWM control because the auxiliary resonant circuit operates for a small fraction of the switching cycle. Since the auxiliary circuit is a resonant circuit, the auxiliary switch itself has both a soft turn on and turn off, resulting in reduced switching losses and electromagnetic interference (EMI). This is unlike other proposed ZVS boost converters with auxiliary circuits where the auxiliary switch has a hard turn off. Peak switch stresses are only slightly higher than those found in a conventional PWM boost converter because part of the energy that would otherwise circulate in the auxiliary circuit and drastically increase peak switch stresses is fed to the load. In this paper, the operation of the converter is explained and analyzed, design guidelines are given, and experimental results obtained from a prototype are presented. The proposed converter is found to be about 2%-3% more efficient than the conventional PWM boost converter     

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