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1347
AbstractPulse width modulation (PWM) current-fed fullbridge dcdc boost converters are typically used in applications
where the output voltage is considerably higher than the input
voltage. In this paper, a comparison is made between two converter
topologies of this typethe standard zero-voltage switching (ZVS)
active-clamp topology and a new zero-current switching (ZCS)
topology. This paper begins with a review of the operation of the
ZVS active-clamp converter and that of ZCS converters in general;
the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are stated. A
new ZCS-PWM current-fed dcdc boost full-bridge converter is
then introduced. The operation of the new converter is explained
and analyzed, and a procedure for the design of its key components
is given and demonstrated with an example. Experimental results
obtained from a prototype of a ZVS active-clamp converter and
the new ZCS converter are presented. Finally, a comparison of the
performance of the two converters is made and conclusion based
on this comparison is stated.
Index TermsActive clamp, dcdc power conversion, LCresonance, low-power converters, pulsewidth modulated (PWM)
converters, soft switching, switch-mode power supply, full-bridge
converter, zero-current switching (ZCS), zero-voltage switching
(ZVS).
I. INTRODUCTION
HERE are a number of applications where an output dc
voltage that is considerably larger than the input dc voltage
is needed. Such applications include fuel cell and photovoltaic
(pv) applications, where the voltage obtained from the fuel or
pv cell is low, and hybrid vehicles where the voltage required to
run the motor is much higher than that provided by the battery.
Pulse width modulation (PWM) current-fed full-bridge boost
converters like the one shown in Fig. 1 are the preferred option
Fig. 1.
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Fig. 2.
In this paper, a comparative study of two PWM dcdc fullbridge boost convertersa ZVS converter that uses the standard
active-clamp technique and a new ZCS converteris presented.
The operation of the ZVS active-clamp converter is explained
and its strengths and weaknesses are stated. After a review of
the existing ZCS converters, a new ZCS-PWM boost full-bridge
converter is introduced. The operation of the new converter is
explained and analyzed, and a procedure for the design of its key
components is given and demonstrated with an example. Experimental results obtained from a prototype of ZVS active-clamp
converter and the new ZCS converter are presented. Finally, a
comparison of performance of the two converters is made and
conclusion based on this comparison is stated.
II. ZVS-PWM FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
WITH ACTIVE CLAMP
The most widely used current-fed full-bridge converter for
applications with low input dc voltages is the ZVS active-clamp
converter shown in Fig. 2 [1][10]. Any converter switch can be
made to turn on with ZVS by turning the active-clamp switch
Qaux just before it is to be turned on. This action discharges
energy from the active-clamp capacitor into the transformer
leakage inductance that is then used to discharge the capacitance
across the switch, thus bringing down the voltage across the
switch to zero before it is turned on.
The capacitor also acts as a clamp that keeps excessive voltage
ringing from appearing across the switches. The spikes and the
ringing are due to the interaction of the bridge switches and
the transformer primary leakage inductance when the switches
are turned off. Energy that would otherwise resonate between
these components can be transferred to the clamp capacitor and
then used to help the main converter switches to turn on with
ZVS.
The operation of the converter is as follows: the clamp switch
Qaux is ON whenever any two diagonally opposite switches of
the full bridge are ON and the converter is in an energy transfer
mode. This switch is OFF whenever all four full-bridge switches
are ON and the converter is in a boosting mode. Assuming that
Q1 and Q4 have been turned on and the converter has just entered
an energy transfer mode, Qaux is turned on soon afterward.
Doing so discharges the energy stored in the clamp capacitor
into the leakage inductance of the transformer so that the current
in the leakage inductor of the transformer becomes greater than
the input current.
MOUSAVI et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A NEW ZCS DCDC FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
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Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.
Converter waveforms.
MOUSAVI et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A NEW ZCS DCDC FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
1351
(3)
(VCr0 Vx ) sin 2 t
(4)
Z0
where 22 = 1/Lr 2 Cr and Z0 = Lr 2 /Cr is the characteristic
impedance of the auxiliary circuit. The transformer primary
is clamped to Vx = Vo (N1 /N2 ) from time t2 to t4 and the
secondary diode Ds1 is forward biased. Circulating energy from
the auxiliary circuit is transferred to the output during this time.
Mode 3 (t3 < t < t4 ) [see Fig. 9(d)]: At t = t3 , the voltage
across Cr reaches zero and Daux starts to conduct as Cr continues to resonate with Lr 2 and the voltage across it becomes
negative. This negative voltage appears across the resonant inductor Lr 1 , and thus, current diverts away from the full-bridge
switches.
The voltages across Cr and Lr 1 , VCr and VLr 1 , the currents
through Lr 1 and Lr 2 , iLr 1 and iLr 2 , and the current through Cr ,
iCr , can be expressed according to the following equations:
iLr2 (t) =
(5)
d2 VCr (t)
2
= VCr (t)eq
VX 22
dt2
(6)
Fig. 9. Converter modes of operation. (a) Mode 0. (b) Mode 1. (c) Mode 2.
(d) Mode 3. (e) Mode 4. (f) Mode 5. (g) Mode 6. (h) Mode 7. (i) Mode 8.
diLr1 (t)
diLr2 (t)
= Lr 2
+ Vx . (7)
dt
dt
The initial conditions for (6) and (7) are VCr (0) = 0, iLr 1 =
Is , and
VLr1 (t) = VCr (t) = Lr 1
iLr2 (0) =
(8)
Vx 22 [1 cos eq t]
2
eq
(9)
ILr1 (t) = Is
Vx 22 [t sin eq t]
2 L
eq
r1
(10)
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iLr2 (t) =
Vx 22 [tsin eq t] Vx t
2 L
eq
Lr 2
r2
(11)
2
= 1/Leq Cr and Leq = Lr 1 Lr 2 /Lr 1 + Lr 2 .
where eq
Mode 4 (t4 < t < t5 ) [see Fig. 9(e)]: At t = t4 , the current
through the main switches becomes zero and begins reversing
direction by flowing through the body diodes of the switches.
Switches Q2 and Q3 can be turned off softly at any time while
current is flowing through their body diodes. Current in the
auxiliary circuit is positive but decreasing.
Mode 5 (t5 < t < t6 ) [see Fig. 9(f)]: At t = t5 , the body
diode of Qaux starts conducting and the switch can be turned off
softly after this instant. During this mode, the body diode of all
converter switches conducts current. The current coming out of
the bridge flows through Lr 1 and Daux , charging up Cr . Energy
is transferred from the auxiliary circuit to the load through Taux
and Ds2 .
Mode 6 (t6 < t < t7 ) [see Fig. 9(g)]: At t = t6 , the current
in the body diode of Qaux goes to zero. During this mode,
the voltage across Cr increases in resonance with Lr 1 while
the current flows through the body diodes of the full-bridge
switches. At the end of this mode, the voltage across Cr reaches
Vpri = Vo /N .
Mode 7 (t7 < t < t8 ) [see Fig. 9(h)]: At t = t7 , the current
in the body diodes of the full-bridge switch becomes zero, and
some input current starts to flow through Lr 1 , Q1 , and Q4 .
The remaining input current continues to charge Cr and the
voltage across it rises. Energy begins to be transferred to the
load through D1 and D4 . At the end of this mode, the voltage
across Cr charges up to VCr 0 .
The differential equations describing this mode are
dvCr (t)
+ iLr1
(12)
dt
diLr1 (t) Vo
+
(13)
vCr (t) = Lr 1
dt
N
which have the following initial conditions: VCr (0) = Vo /N ,
iLr (0) = 0, iCr (0) = Iin . Applying these initial conditions, the
capacitor voltage in this mode is given by
Iin = Cr
Vo
+ Iin Z1 sin 1 t
N
(14)
(15)
where
Mode 8 (t8 < t < t9 ) [see Fig. 9(i)]: At t = t8 , all the input
current flows through the bridge switches Q1 and Q4 , and none
through Cr . The converter is in an energy transfer mode. A
negative voltage is placed across the input inductor. At the end
of this mode at t9 = TSw /2 , Q2 and Q3 are turned on and this
begins the beginning of a similar switching half cycle.
B. Converter Features
The new ZCS-PWM full-bridge boost converter has the following features.
1) The presence of a transformer in the auxiliary circuit provides a path for energy that would otherwise be trapped
in the auxiliary circuit. Energy can be transferred to the
output instead of contributing to conduction losses.
2) The auxiliary circuit is adaptive as the greater the energy
that would otherwise be trapped in the circuit, the greater
the energy that is transferred to the output, since trapped
auxiliary circuit energy is a cause of circulating current.
This means that the converter can be made to operate with
little additional circulating current regardless of whether
it is operating with a light load or a heavy load. This property does not exist in most other ZCS-PWM full-bridge
boost converters as they have a considerable amount
of circulating current when operating under light-load
conditions.
3) Since the new converter has little additional circulating
current regardless of load, it does not need additional
diodes connected in series with the full-bridge switches to
prevent current flowing through their body diodes. There
are, therefore, no conduction losses due to series blocking
diodes unlike several other ZCS-PWM full-bridge boost
converters.
4) The peak current stress of the switches is the same as
that of a switch in a conventional PWM boost full-bridge
converter, as Daux blocks any auxiliary circuit current
from flowing into the full bridge.
5) One of the drawbacks of a conventional current-fed fullbridge converter is that it lacks a dc bus capacitor across
the full-bridge section so that there can be uncontrolled
voltage spikes during turn-off of the bridge devices owing
to resonance between their output capacitance and leakage
inductance which can damage the bridge devices. It can
be seen from Fig. 8 that the full-bridge switches do have
an additional voltage stress in form of a controlled voltage
hump and not an uncontrolled voltage spike. The rise of
this voltage hump is restricted by the size of Cr , Lr 1 , and
Llk and also its maximum value is fixed at
VCr (t) =
1 =
and
1
(Lr 1 + Llk )Cr
Z1 =
Lr 1 + Llk
Cr
(16)
(17)
Vo
+ Iin Z1 .
N
(18)
MOUSAVI et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A NEW ZCS DCDC FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
can be generated from the equations that were derived from the
analysis of the converter in Section III. Equations (8)(11) are
the key equations that can be used to generate these curves. For
example, the converter is to be designed according to the following specifications: output voltage Vo = 300 V, input voltage
Vin = 12 V24 V, output power Po = 600 W, and switching
frequency fs = 1/Ts = 50 kHz.
The design procedure that is presented here is an iterative
one and requires several iterations before the final design can
be completed. Only the final iteration will be shown in the
example that follows. It should be noted that only the design
of the auxiliary circuit components is presented here since the
design of the main power circuit can be found in any standard
power electronics textbook.
A) Step 1: Minimize Reverse Recovery Losses in the Auxiliary
Diode
The duration of Mode 7 in which the input current gets diverted from the auxiliary capacitor Cr to the inductance Lr 1
should be greater than 3trr (three times the reverse recovery
time of the auxiliary diode), which is typically. The expression
for the commutation time tc can be found from (14) to be
tc =
(19)
21
where
1 =
1
(Lr 1 + Llk )Cr
(20)
Fig. 10.
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the current into the full bridge to reverse direction and create an
opportunity for the ZCS turn-off of switches.
By choosing a large capacitor, the resonant cycle time will
increase in the circuit, which in turn will increase the on-time
duty ratio in the auxiliary switch and will cause more losses
as the device has to be on longer. The energy in the capacitor
is 12 CV 2 , so either a higher voltage can be placed across the
capacitor or a bigger capacitor can be chosen. For this design, a
value of Z1 = 1.5 is chosen. Using (20), determined in Step
2, and Z1 , given by (17) in this step, values of Lr 1 and Cr are
found to be 240 nH and 360 nF by assuming Llk to be typically
around 500 nH.
C) Step 3: Determine the Characteristic Impedance
of the Auxiliary Circuit and the Value of Lr 2
The characteristic impedance of the auxiliary circuit is defined
by
(21)
The value for the commutation time tc during which the input current gets diverted from the auxiliary capacitor Cr to the
bridge section must be greater than the value of 3trr of the auxiliary diode. As a result, the following relation can be derived:
(Lr 1 + Llk )Cr = 240 nS.
(22)
3trr = tc =
2
Equation (22) will be used along with equations derived in the
following steps to determine the values of Cr and Lr 1 .
B) Step 2: Determine the Values of Cr and Lr 1
In this step, the values of Cr and Lr 1 are determined. Consider Mode 7, when switches Q2 and Q3 are turned off and
voltage across them builds up due to the resonance between the
equivalent series inductance of leakage inductance Llk and Lr 1
and capacitor Cr . At the end of this mode, the voltage across
the switches rises to a peak voltage given by (18).
The value of this peak voltage across the switches, which is
the same as the maximum voltage across the resonant capacitor,
is plotted for different values of Z1 in Fig. 10. It can be found
from this graph that by choosing a larger impedance, the voltage
across Cr will increase. If a smaller impedance is chosen, a
larger capacitor must be used for Cr as there must be enough
energy stored in the capacitor at the end of this mode to force
Zo =
Lr 2
Cr
(23)
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Fig. 11.
Zo .
Fig. 12. (a) Variation of the duration in which bridge switch currents reduce to
zero and go negative during Modes 35 for different values of N x . (b)Variation
of the duration in which bridge switch currents reduce to zero and go negative
during Modes 35 for different values of N x .
and bridge switches needs to be considered. The primary voltage Vx = Vo /Nx across the auxiliary transformer in Modes 24
reduces the negative peak voltage across Cr and also reduces
peak current across the auxiliary switch. These two phenomena
can have a detrimental effect on the ZCS window, but they can
help in reducing circulating current in the auxiliary circuit.
The characteristic graphs in Fig. 12(a) and (b) show the effect
that Vx has on the duration and amount of negative portion
of the bridge switch and auxiliary switch current for varying
values of Vx with other component values decided in previous
steps, during Modes 35. These are also the modes in which
the currents in all switches reduce to zero and reverse direction
MOUSAVI et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A NEW ZCS DCDC FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
Fig. 13.
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Fig. 14. (a) Current and voltage in switches Q1 and Q4 over one full switching
period (V : 30 V/div, I: 15 A/div, t: 2 s/div). (b) Current and voltage in auxiliary
switch over one switching period (V : 30V/div, I: 15 A/div, t: 2 s/div).
Fig. 15.
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Fig. 16.
Fig. 19. Efficiency measurements for the new ZCS converter, the active-clamp
converter, and the conventional hard switching converter with 24-V input and
varying output load.
Fig. 17. Current and voltage in switches Q1 Q4 over one full switching period
in the active-clamp converter (V : 30 V/div, I: 15 A/div, t: 5 s/div).
Fig. 20. Efficiency measurements for the new ZCS converter, the active-clamp
converter, and the conventional hard switching converter with 12-V input and
varying output load.
Fig. 18. Current through and voltage across auxiliary active-clamp branch in
the active-clamp converter (V : 30 V/div, I: 15 A/div, t: 5 s/div).
even though it was a 200-W converter operating with 24-V input voltage. ZCS converters, however, can be implemented with
MOSFETs having very low values of Coss because the turn-off of
these devices is soft and there is no need for large switch output
capacitances to suppress voltage spikes. The use of devices with
low values of Coss helps reduce the turn-on losses that would
occur otherwise. The STD70N10F4 devices that were used in
the main power circuit and the STD25NF10 device that was
used in the auxiliary circuit have very low values of Coss . The
STD70N10F4 devices also have a very low value of Rds,on to
reduce conduction losses. The same basic full-bridge structure
with the same devices used for the main power switches was
used to make the comparison between the ZVS and the ZCS converter. Some voltage spiking was allowed in the ZVS converter
and considered acceptable so that the same basic full-bridge
could be used to make the comparison.
Efficiency measurements taken from the ZCS, the activeclamp converter, and an equivalent hard switching converter are
shown in Figs. 19 and 20 for 24 V and 12 V inputs, respectively.
For the case when the input voltage is 24 V, it can be seen
that the new ZCS converter is more efficient than the standard
ZVS active converter only when the load is greater than 450 W.
For the case when the input voltage is 12 V, however, it can
be seen that the new ZCS converter is more efficient than the
active-clamp converter for loads over 300 W.
The new ZCS converter is more efficient than the ZVS activeclamp converter when the primary side current is very high. This
MOUSAVI et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A NEW ZCS DCDC FULL-BRIDGE BOOST CONVERTER
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Gerry Moschopoulos (S90M96SM10) received the B.Eng., M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from
Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, in
1989, 1992, and 1997, respectively, all in electrical
engineering.
From 1996 to 1998, he was a Design Engineer in
the Advanced Power Systems Division, Nortel Networks, Lachine, QC, Canada. From 1998 to 2000,
he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University, where he was involved in research in the area
of power electronics for telecommunications applications. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Western
Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
Dr. Moschopoulos is a Registered Professional Engineer in the province of
Ontario.