Control And Topology Improvements In Half-bridge Dc-dc Converters

Efficiency and transient response are two key requirements for DC-DC converters. Topology and control are two key topics in this dissertation. A variety of techniques for DC-DC converter performance improvement are presented in this work. Focusing on the efficiency issue, a variety of clamping techniques including both active and passive methods are presented after the ringing issues in DC-DC converters are investigated. By presenting the clamping techniques, a big variety of energy management concepts are introduced. The active bridge-capacitor tank clamping and FET-diode-capacitor tank clamping are close ideas, which transfer the leakage inductor energy to clamping capacitor to prevent oscillation between leakage inductor and junction capacitor of MOSFETs. The two-FET-clamping tank employs two MOSFETs to freewheeling the leakage current when the main MOSFETs of the half-bridge are both off. Driving voltage variation on the secondary side Synchronous Rectifier (SR) MOSFETs in self-driven circuit due to input voltage variation in bus converter applications is also investigated. One solution with a variety of derivations is proposed using zerner-capacitor combination to clamping the voltage while maintaining reasonable power losses. Another efficiency improvement idea comes from phase-shift concept in DC-DC converters. By employing phase-shift scheme, the primary side and the secondary side two MOSFETs have complementary driving signals respectively, which allow the MOSFET to be turned on with Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS). Simulation verified the feasibility of the proposed phase-shifted DC-DC converter. From the control scheme point of view, a novel peak current mode control concept for half-bridge topologies is presented. Aiming at compensating the imbalanced voltage due to peak current mode control in symmetric half-bridge topologies, an additional voltage compensation loop is used to bring the half-bridge capacitor voltage back to balance. In the proposed solutions, one scheme is applied on symmetric half-bridge topology and the other one is applied on Duty-cycle-shifted (DCS) half-bridge topology. Both schemes employ simple circuitry and are suitable for integration. Loop stability issues are also investigated in this work. Modeling work shows the uncompensated half-bridge topology cannot be stabilized under all conditions and the additional compensation loop helps to prevent the voltage imbalance effectively

Resonant Hybrid Flyback, a New Topology for High Density Power Adaptors

In this article, an innovative power adaptor based on the asymmetrical pulse width modulation (PWM) flyback topology will be presented. Its benefits compared to other state-of-the-art topologies, such as the active clamp flyback, are analyzed in detail. It will also describe the control methods to achieve high efficiency and power density using zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and zero-current switching (ZCS) techniques over the full range of the input voltage and the output load, providing comprehensive guidelines for the practical design. Finally, we demonstrate the convenience of the proposed design methods with a 65 W adaptor prototype achieving a peak efficiency of close to 95% and a minimum efficiency of 93.4% at full load over the range of the input voltage, as well as a world-class power density of 22 W/inch3 cased.This research is financed by Infineon Tecnologias AG

High Current Density Low Voltage Isolated Dc-dc Converterswith Fast Transient Response

With the rapid development of microprocessor and semiconductor technology, industry continues to update the requirements for power supplies. For telecommunication and computing system applications, power supplies require increasing current level while the supply voltage keeps decreasing. For example, the Intel\u27s CPU core voltage decreased from 2 volt in 1999 to 1 volt in 2005 while the supply current increased from 20A in 1999 to up to 100A in 2005. As a result, low-voltage high-current high efficiency dc-dc converters with high power-density are demanded for state-of-the-art applications and also the future applications. Half-bridge dc-dc converter with current-doubler rectification is regarded as a good topology that is suitable for high-current low-voltage applications. There are three control schemes for half-bridge dc-dc converters and in order to provide a valid unified analog model for optimal compensator design, the analog state-space modeling and small signal modeling are studied in the dissertation and unified state-space and analog small signal model are derived. In addition, the digital control gains a lot of attentions due to its flexibility and re-programmability. In this dissertation, a unified digital small signal model for half-bridge dc-dc converter with current doubler rectifier is also developed and the digital compensator based on the derived model is implemented and verified by the experiments with the TI DSP chip. In addition, although current doubler rectifier is widely used in industry, the key issue is the current sharing between two inductors. The current imbalance is well studied and solved in non-isolated multi-phase buck converters, yet few discusse this issue in the current doubler rectification topology within academia and industry. This dissertation analyze the current sharing issue in comparison with multi-phase buck and one modified current doubler rectifier topology is proposed to achieve passive current sharing. The performance is evaluated with half bridge dc-dc converter; good current sharing is achieved without additional circuitry. Due to increasing demands for high-efficiency high-power-density low-voltage high current topologies for future applications, the thermal management is challenging. Since the secondary-side conduction loss dominates the overall power loss in low-voltage high-current isolated dc-dc converters, a novel current tripler rectification topology is proposed. Theoretical analysis, comparison and experimental results verify that the proposed rectification technique has good thermal management and well-distributed power dissipation, simplified magnetic design and low copper loss for inductors and transformer. That is due to the fact that the load current is better distributed in three inductors and the rms current in transformer windings is reduced. Another challenge in telecommunication and computing applications is fast transient response of the converter to the increasing slew-rate of load current change. For instance, from Intel\u27s roadmap, it can be observed that the current slew rate of the age regulator has dramatically increased from 25A/uS in 1999 to 400A/us in 2005. One of the solutions to achieve fast transient response is secondary-side control technique to eliminate the delay of optocoupler to increase the system bandwidth. Active-clamp half bridge dc-dc converter with secondary-side control is presented and one industry standard 16th prototype is built and tested; good efficiency and transient response are shown in the experimental section. However, one key issue for implementation of secondary-side control is start-up. A new zero-voltage-switching buck-flyback isolated dc-dc converter with synchronous rectification is proposed, and it is only suitable for start-up circuit for secondary-side controlled converter, but also for house-keeping power supplies and standalone power supplies requiring multi-outputs

PWM Half-Bridge Converter with Dual-Equally Adjustable Control Signal Dead-Time

A method and system of controlling half-bridge DC--DC converters to achieve Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) for at least one of the switches. The soft-switching half-bridge DC--DC converter system includes soft-switching for all switches by adding an additional branch with a switch and a diode across the primary side of an isolation transformer and by applying a Duty-Cycle Shifted PWM Control

Survey on Photo-Voltaic Powered Interleaved Converter System

Renewable energy is the best solution to meet the growing demand for energy in the country. The solar energy is considered as the most promising energy by the researchers due to its abundant availability, eco-friendly nature, long lasting nature, wide range of application and above all it is a maintenance free system. The energy absorbed by the earth can satisfy 15000 times of today’s total energy demand and its hundred times more than that our conventional energy like coal and other fossil fuels. Though, there are overwhelming advantages in solar energy, It has few drawbacks as well such as its low conversion ratio, inconsistent supply of energy due to variation in the sun light, less efficiency due to ripples in the converter, time dependent and, above all, high capitation cost. These aforementioned flaws have been addressed by the researchers in order to extract maximum energy and attain hundred percentage benefits of this heavenly resource. So, this chapter presents a comprehensive investigation based on photo voltaic (PV) system requirements with the following constraints such as system efficiency, system gain, dynamic response, switching losses are investigated. The overview exhibits and identifies the requirements of a best PV power generation system

Soft-Switched Resonant DC-DC Converter in Underwater DC Power Distribution Network

Power distribution with DC source is advantageous over its AC counterpart in long distance distribution network due to the absence of effects of reactive components. Long distance power distribution with traditional voltage source suffers from drop in voltage over the length of the cable due to its impedance and forces the converters in the network to be over-designed with higher power rating than needed. In underwater power distribution network such as ocean observatory, marine sensors on the sea-bed etc., power conversion modules are situated at a distance far away from the shore, ranging from tens of kilometers to hundreds of kilometers. DC current distribution offers ruggedness against voltage drop over the length of the trunk cable and thus eliminates the need of converter over-design, making it the preferred choice in underwater long distance power distribution network. Moreover, distribution with DC current source improves the overall system reliability with robustness under cable fault scenarios. Converters used in underwater system require operation with high reliability with little to no maintenance due to their geographical locations. Resonant converters offer quiet and efficient operation with low EMI due to low di/dt and dv/dt owing to sinusoidal current and/or voltage and soft-switching. This makes resonant converters an excellent choice for reliable, long term operation in underwater distribution system. However, designing resonant converters with constant current input imposes certain challenges as compared voltage source input, which are analyzed in this work. Addressing these challenges it is shown how different resonant power conversion topologies can be suitably selected and designed to meet the end goal of regulating its output current or voltage for wide range of loads. Soft switching requirements of these topologies are also investigated with appropriate vi solutions to ensure devices used in these converters switch with low loss and dv/dt. Some of the critical loads in the system demand bidirectional power transfer capability which is also presented in this work with befitting topology. Detailed modeling, analysis, design and experimental results from hardware prototypes are presented for all the converters in the system operating with 250 kHz switching frequency, regulating its output voltage or current from 1 A DC current source, up to a power level of 1 kW

Design Methodology of Tightly Regulated Dual-Output LLC Resonant Converter Using PFM-APWM Hybrid Control Method

A dual-output LLC resonant converter using pulse frequency modulation (PFM) and asymmetrical pulse width modulation (APWM) can achieve tight output voltage regulation, high power density, and high cost-effectiveness. However, an improper resonant tank design cannot achieve tight cross regulation of the dual-output channels at the worst-case load conditions. In addition, proper magnetizing inductance is required to achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) of the power MOSFETs in the LLC resonant converter. In this paper, voltage gain of modulation methods and steady state operations are analyzed to implement the hybrid control method. In addition, the operation of the hybrid control algorithm is analyzed to achieve tight cross regulation performance. From this analysis, the design methodology of the resonant tank and the magnetizing inductance are proposed to compensate the output error of both outputs and to achieve ZVS over the entire load range. The cross regulation performance is verified with simulation and experimental results using a 190 W prototype converter

Chemical And Biological Treatment Of Mature Landfill Leachate

The challenges imposed on Voltage Regulator Modules (VRM) become difficult to be achieved with the conventional multiphase buck converter commonly used on PC motherboards. For faster data transfer, a decrease in the output voltage is needed. This decrease causes small duty cycle that is accompanied by critical problems which impairs the efficiency. Therefore, these problems need to be addressed. Transformer-based non-isolated topologies are not new approaches to extend the duty cycle and avoid the associated drawbacks. High leakage, several added components and complicated driving and control schemes are some of the trade-offs to expand the duty cycle. The objective of this work is to present a new dc-dc buck-based topology, which extends the duty cycle with minimum drawbacks by adding two transformers that can be integrated to decrease the size and two switches with zero voltage switching (ZVS). Another issue addressed in this thesis is deriving a small signal model for a two-input two-phase buck converter as an introduction to a new evolving field of multi-input converters

Improved Dual-Output Step-Down Soft-Switching Current-Fed Push-Pull DC-DC Converter

Multi-port DC-DC converters are gaining more significance in modern power system environments by enabling the connection of multiple renewable energy sources, so the efficient operation of these converters is paramount. Soft switching methods increase efficiency in DC-DC converters and increase the reliability and lifespan of devices by relieving stress on components. This paper proposes a method for soft-switching of a dual-output step-down current-fed full-bridge push-pull DC-DC converter. The converter enables two independent outputs to supply different loads. The topology achieves zero-current switching on the primary side and zero-voltage switching on the secondary side, eliminating the need for active-clamp circuits and passive snubbers to absorb surge voltage. This reduces switching losses and lower voltage and current stresses on power electronic devices. The paper thoroughly investigates the proposed converter's operation principle, control strategy, and characteristics. Equations for the voltage and current of all components are derived, and the conditions for achieving soft switching are calculated. Simulation results in EMTDC/PSCAD software validate the accuracy of the proposed method.Comment: 2023 55th North American Power Symposium (NAPS

Assessment of novel power electronic converters for drives applications

Phd ThesisIn the last twenty years, industrial and academic research has produced over one hundred new converter topologies for drives applications. Regrettably, most of the published work has been directed towards a single topology, giving an overall impression of a large number of unconnected, competing techniques. To provide insight into this wide ranging subject area, an overview of converter topologies is presented. Each topology is classified according to its mode of operation and a family tree is derived encompassing all converter types. Selected converters in each class are analysed, simulated and key operational characteristics identified. Issues associated with the practical implementation of analysed topologies are discussed in detail. Of all AC-AC conversion techniques, it is concluded that softswitching converter topologies offer the most attractive alternative to the standard hard switched converter in the power range up to 100kW because of their high performance to cost ratio. Of the softswitching converters, resonant dc-link topologies are shown to produce the poorest output performance although they offer the cheapest solution. Auxiliary pole commutated inverters, on the other hand, can achieve levels of performance approaching those of the hard switched topology while retaining the benefits of softswitching. It is concluded that the auxiliary commutated resonant pole inverter (ACPI) topology offers the greatest potential for exploitation in spite of its relatively high capital cost. Experimental results are presented for a 20kW hard switched inverter and an equivalent 20kW ACPI. In each case the converter controller is implanted using a digital signal processor. For the ACPI, a new control scheme, which eliminates the need for switch current and voltage sensors, is implemented. Results show that the ACPI produces lower overall losses when compared to its hardswitching counterpart. In addition, device voltage stress, output dv/dt and levels of high frequency output harmonics are all reduced. Finally, it is concluded that modularisation of the active devices, optimisation of semiconductor design and a reduction in the number of additional sensors through the use of novel control methods, such as those presented, will all play a part in the realisation of an economically viable system.Research Committee of the University of Newcastle upon Tyn