A ZVS-ZCS Snubber Network for High-Power Density DC-DC ConverterApplication

Ahmad Faez Ahmad Fahmi. Muhammad Nasih Saifullah. Shahrul Azwan Mohd Taib School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia. E-mail: g.mr.successor@gmail.com, mnasihs@gmail.com, shah.rule.91@gmail.com
Abstract - A type of converter topology is investigated. This converter topology combines the application of both zerovoltage switching (ZVS) and zero-current switching (ZCS) snubber network. The circuit simulated has the parameters 50 V input voltage, 100 V output voltage and 250 kHz switching frequency. The other parameters of the circuit are shown in the simulated circuit diagram. This investigation is conducted to see the effect of applying both types of switching stated previously on the power dissipation and efficiency compared to conventional boost converter circuit. For this purpose, LTspice software is used to show that the boost converter being investigated has better efficiency. Simulation result shows that output power efficiency improves by 96%. By comparing to conventional boost converters, the result shows an increment of about 20% in efficiency. KeywordsBoosts, ZVS, ZCS, Snubber Network.

INTRODUCTION Zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and zero-current switching (ZSC) topologies can make use of transformer leakage inductance and diode junction capacitors and output parasitic capacitor of power switch. Both also share the same major weakness, where for the purpose of output regulation, variable-frequency control is required. Many researches have been done to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of ZVS and ZCS. However, these researches were done mostly while considering the effect of applying one topology at a time. Thus, this research is very important in order for us to know how the applications of both topologies in circuits affect the performance and efficiency of the circuits involved. The main concern on this paper is to obtain a high current/ low voltage power converter to DC-DC high power density application. One of the main requirements for the high power density is a high switching frequency [1]. LITERATURE REVIEW In recent years, there is an increasing demand on DCDC converters with high power density, high conversion efficiency and low electromagnetic interference (EMI). Switching stress and losses in semiconductor devices is an immense concern during the power conversion stage. Conventional flyback and forward converter cannot meet the efficiency demanded due to the large switching losses

on power semiconductor devices especially for high switching frequency operation [2]. To overcome these arising matters, the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and zero- current switching (ZCS) snubber network topology technique is used to increase the efficiency. The established solution used for DC-DC conversion for medium to high power application is the H Bridge operating in hard switching [3]. However, in case of small power applications field, a variety of resonant snubber-assisted soft switching power conversion circuits actually more difficult to achieve high power conversion efficiency which surpasses the hard switching sinusoidal PWM modulation system [4]. Because the power losses which are brought by newly added active quasi-resonant snubber circuits surpass the switching power losses of power semiconductor devices reduced by the resonant snubber-assisted The main issue of topologies that operate at high frequencies is the switching losses. Reduction of the switching loss can be achieved by implementing resonant switching or also known as soft switching [5].Commonly, there are two types of switching losses during turn on and turn off state. At turn off state, the power transformer leakage inductance produces high which result in a high voltage spike across it. On the other hand, at turn on state, the switching losses are mainly caused by the dissipation of energy stored in the output parasitic capacitor of the power switch. Figure 1 shows the typical switching current, voltage and power loss waveform.

(a)

(b)

Figure 1: Typical switching current, voltage, and power loss waveforms at (a) turn-off and (b) turn-on.

Figure 3(a) - Typical ZCS Boost Converter circuit design.

Figure 2 Switching of power DC-DC converter (a) hard switching (b) zero current soft switching (c) zero voltage soft switching

A. Soft Switching Topologies The main idea of soft switching is to prevent or minimize the overlap between the voltage and current so that the switching loss is minimal [6]. Figure 2 shows the hard switching and soft switching of devices using ZCS and ZVS principle, respectively. By applying either ZVS or ZCS to the switch during interval, it can give a reduction of the switching losses for the standard soft switching topologies [7]. The other of the two variables (voltage and current) is mostly switched its nominal response maximal value. To get a better topology, ZVS converter can be applied. It has an active snubber circuit to attain soft switching. Snubber circuit usually consists of a few additional components that can be connected across the switch in the circuit. This component configuration will produce soft switching and hence reduce the switching stress and also losses. B. Zero-Current and Zero- Voltage Switching The zero voltage/zero current switching can be effectively improved the efficiency of the converter. In ZVS, there is a major advantage is reducing the voltage stresses across switches, if that converter produces low voltage to high voltage. The main switch still has the turn-on loss and even encounters an additional serious high current peak during turn-on transition time due to energy stored in L-C components in circuit. The ZCS topology removes the turnoff current tail of the switch used in DC-DC converter [8][9]. Figure 3(a) and 3(b) show the typical design for the ZVS and ZCS topology.

Figure 3 (b) Typical quasi resonant ZVS Boost Converter circuit design

Figure 4 Switching trajectory of switch

C. Snubber Network A snubber network is used in DC-DC power converter to reduce the switching losses either turned-on or turned-off state [10]. The snubber network will help to reduce the spike occurred during the switching process. The snubber network works by: Limiting device voltages during turn-off transients Limiting device currents during turn-on transients Limiting the rate-of-rise ( of currents through the semiconductor device at device turn-on

 Limiting the rate-of-rise of voltages across the semiconductor device at device turn-off Shaping the switching trajectory of the device as it turns on/off Figure 4 shows the switching trajectory for switch. Over voltage at turn-off due to stray inductance while over current at turn-on due to diode reverse recovery.

Using the software LTspice, the circuit in the Figure 5 is simulated until steady state is reached. The switching frequency set is 250 kHz. Input voltage is set to be 50 V. When steady state is achieved, only then the desired waveform of output voltage and output current will appear. The values of the components are chosen in such a way that allows the circuit to run in continuous conduction mode.

For the simulation circuit, the following parameters have been used.

METHODOLOGY 0kHz

A boost converter circuit is used as a test circuit to test for the practicality of the circuit combining zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching. This is because in DC-DC applications, a boost converter circuit is required to achieve soft switching state whenever the magnitude of output voltage is in the range of twice or greater the magnitude of input voltage. For a conventional boost converter circuit, when the switch is closed, energy is actually being transferred to the inductor. At the same time, the diode cannot be discharged through the closed switch because of the presence of diode. When the switch is opened instead, something else occurs. In this state, current has been accumulated in the inductor. When the switch is opened, current will be discharged from the inductor. Like in the previous cycle, the current flow continuously in the same direction. This causes the diode to be forward-biased. Simultaneously, the input voltage sources and the inductor transfer energy to the load area of the circuit. A voltage boost happens across the load because of this in the form of greater magnitude of output voltage compared to input voltage. Of course, the capacitor must be large enough to keep the magnitude of output voltage to be about constant. As the system is designed to be in continuous conduction mode, the current of the inductor is not allowed to reach zero value. A circuit of the boost converter with the combination of zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching is designed as shown in Figure 5.

For ZCS,

For ZVS,

= 0.38, = 0.8

Figure 5- Circuit configuration of the proposed converter

For the simulation,

The most obvious waveform on the graph is the waveform of current flowing through the inductor Lo. It is observed that the current flows when the switch is on, and the collector voltage is flowing when the current is not. This voltage is absent during ON state of the switch and will only present during OFF state of the switch, as per in theory. In the graph, it is also can be expected that the value of input voltage will remain the same at 50 V.

The value of Lo used in the simulation is reduced by 100 to increase the discharge time of the inductor. This minor modification is being made to let the output current to reach 0A when the switch is OFF. A small resistance is added in parallel with to smoothen the output voltage and current. In the meantime, the flyback diode is added to reduce the time taken for the inductor to discharge and therefore reduce the curve of the output current and produces a square wave. However, an overshoot can still be observed in the output current when it is approaching zero. For the calculated values of components, the frequency parameter used is of the same value, which 250 kHz for switching frequency for both zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching. SIMULATION RESULT The graph in Figure 6 shows the simulation result for the circuit simulated in the methodology part.
Figure 7: Waveform of input current from simulation

Figure 8: Waveform of output voltage from simulation

Figure 6- Waveform of output inductor current

Figure 7 and 8 shows the waveform obtain for input ripple current and output ripple voltage by using simulation. The percentage of input ripple current obtained from the simulation is 1.03%. On the other hand, the output ripple voltage obtained from is simulation is 0.15%.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION As seen in the simulation results part, there is a period where the current flowing through the inductor Lo almost reaches zero. This is the period when the switch changes its state from ON to OFF state. When the switch is totally in OFF state, the current through that inductor becomes zero. Because of this condition, the circuit is called zerocurrent switching particularly at this point of time. When the switch in the circuit is in OFF state, then current in the diode D1 in the simulated circuited increases as time goes by. However, the opposite thing occurs for the current in the diode D3, where the current decreases. At the same time, the voltages across the two diodes are not equal to zero. When the switch is in the transition period from OFF to ON state, there is a drop of current in the diode D 1 to a value close to zero. All other waveforms for currents and voltages of components are expected to be still in transition period too. When the switch is totally in ON state, the current and voltage across the diode D 1 become zero. The simulated circuit demonstrates how the snubber network in a circuit works. A snubber network is used to reduce power losses during switching period in a circuit. Switching in this context can be referred as the period when the transition of switches in DC-DC converters from ON to OFF state or vice versa occurs. Adding a snubber network to circuits is able to reduce the stresses experienced by the components in the circuits in terms of voltage and current. During switching period, switches will have to endure the sudden increase of voltage and current, and thus, a snubber network helps in reducing these stresses. Diodes also experience the same thing during switching period. A snubber network can consist of resistor, diode, inductor and capacitor to control voltage and current and direction of dissipation of energy. A snubber inductor is placed in the circuit to control the change of level of current with respect to time. This is done so that the circuit is able to achieve zero-current switching condition. When there is a need for the energy in the inductor to be discharged, a snubber diode can do this job. A snubber capacitor on the other hand usually arranges discharging process to occur over a semiconductor switch so that zero-voltage switching condition can be achieved. So, basically, there are three types of snubber networks used in circuits. A voltage snubber controls the rate of rise of voltage across the switch and diode during turn-off switching. A current snubber controls the rate of rise of current through the switch and diode

turn-on switching occurs. An RC snubber is used to damp the ringing and oscillation of voltage across switches and diodes. This can lead to a reduction in electromagnetic interference radiation. All these types of snubber networks in the end serve as a mean to reduce the voltage and current stresses experienced by switches in DC-DC converters. CONCLUSION In this paper, the idea of how the combination of snubber network comprising zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching works for DC-DC applications has been presented. The simulation of the circuit with the parameters 50 V input voltage, 100 V output voltage and 250 kHz switching frequency in this paper is developed to provide an illustration. The simulated work which provides the efficiency measurement of 96 % shows an improvement of efficiency by 20% in terms of output power efficiency when compared to conventional boost converters.

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