• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.385-391
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• 2020

In this paper, a new passive lossless snubber circuit with energy transfer capability is proposed. The proposed lossless snubber circuit provides Zero-Current Switching (ZCS) condition for turn-on instants and Zero-Voltage Switching (ZVS) condition for turn-off instants. In addition, its diodes operate under soft switching condition. Therefore, no significant switching losses occur in the converter. Since the energy of the snubber circuit is transferred to the output, there are no significant conduction losses. The proposed snubber circuit can be applied on isolated and non-isolated converters. To verify the operation of the snubber circuit, a boost converter using the proposed snubber is implemented at 70W. Also, the measured conducted Efficiency Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) of the proposed boost converter and conventional ones are presented which show the effects of proposed snubber on EMI reduction. The experimental results confirm the presented theoretical analysis.

• 한국전기전자재료학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2001년도 하계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.1096-1099
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• 2001

The basic design structure of RC-GCTs (Reserve-Conducting Gate-Commutated Thyristors) is firstly given in this paper. The bulk of wafer is punch-through (PT) type with high resistivity and narrow N-base width. The photo-mask was designed upon the turn-off characteristics of GCT and solution of separation between GCT and diode part. The center part of Si wafer is free-wheeling diode (FWD) and outer is GCT part which has 240 fingers totally. The switching performance of GCT was investigated by Dessis of ISE. The basic manufacture process of 2500V-4500V RC-GCTs was given in this work. Additionally, the local carrier lifetime control by 5Mev proton irradiation was adopted so as to not only to have the softness of reverse recovering for FWD but for reduction of turn-off losses of GCT as well.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.41-55
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• 2017

This study proposes a novel zero voltage transition (ZVT) pulse width modulation (PWM) DC-DC interleaved boost converter with an active snubber cell. All the semiconductor devices in the converter turn on and off with soft switching to reduce the switching power losses and improve the overall efficiency. Through the interleaved approach, the current stresses of the main devices and the ripple of the output voltage and input current are reduced. The main switches turn on with ZVT and turn off with zero voltage switching (ZVS). The auxiliary switch turns on with zero current switching (ZCS) and turns off with ZVS. In addition, the snubber cell does not create additional current or voltage stress on the main switches and main diodes. The proposed converter can smoothly achieve soft switching characteristics even under light load conditions. The theoretical analysis and operating stages of the proposed converter are made for the D > 50% and D < 50% modes. Finally, a prototype of the proposed converter is implemented, and the experimental results are given in detail for 500 W and 50 kHz. The overall efficiency of the proposed converter reached 95.5% at nominal output power.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제1권2호
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• pp.216-225
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• 2006

This paper presents a new circuit topology of DC busline switch and snubbing capacitor-assisted full-bridge soft-switching PWM inverter type DC-DC power converter with a high frequency link for low voltage large current applications as DC feeding systems, telecommunication power plants, automotive DC bus converters, plasma generator, electro plating plants, fuel cell interfaced power conditioner and arc welding power supplies. The proposed power converter circuit is based upon a voltage source-fed H type full-bridge high frequency PWM inverter with a high frequency transformer link. The conventional type high frequency inverter circuit is modified by adding a single power semiconductor switching device in series with DC rail and snubbing lossless capacitor in parallel with the inverter bridge legs. All the active power switches in the full-bridge inverter arms and DC busline can achieve ZVS/ZVT turn-off and ZCS turn-on commutation operation. Therefore, the total switching losses at turn-off and turn-on switching transitions of these power semiconductor devices can be reduced even in the high switching frequency bands ranging from 20 kHz to 100 kHz. The switching frequency of this DC-DC power converter using IGBT power modules is selected to be 60 kHz. It is proved experimentally by the power loss analysis that the more the switching frequency increases, the more the proposed DC-DC converter can achieve high performance, lighter in weight, lower power losses and miniaturization in size as compared to the conventional hard switching one. The principle of operation, operation modes, practical and inherent effectiveness of this novel DC-DC power converter topology is proved for a low voltage and large current DC-DC power supplies of arc welder applications in industry.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제17권6호
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• pp.1445-1453
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• 2017

In this study, a new zero-voltage transition (ZVT) buck converter with coupled inductor using a synchronous rectifier and a lossless clamp circuit is proposed. The regular buck converter with tapped inductor has extended duty cycle for high step-down applications. However, the leakage inductance of the coupled inductor produced considerable voltage spikes across the switch. A lossless clamp circuit is used in the proposed converter to overcome this problem. The freewheeling diode was replaced with a synchronous rectifier to reduce conduction losses in the proposed converter. ZVT conditions at turn-on and turn-off instants were provided for the main switch. The synchronous rectifier switch turned on under zero-voltage switching, and the auxiliary switch turn-on and turn-off were under zero-current condition. Experimental results of a 100 W-100 kHz prototype are provided to justify the validity of the theoretical analysis. Moreover, the conducted electromagnetic interference of the proposed converter is measured and compared with its hard-switching counterpart.

• 전력전자학회:학술대회논문집
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• 전력전자학회 2008년도 하계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.391-393
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• 2008

A modified boost converter with magnetic coupling is presented to reduce the reverse recovery loss while maintaining low conduction loss of the rectifiers. By utilizing a coupled inductor and a set of diodes, the current passing the boost rectifier is transferred to an auxiliary loop before turn-off, allowing low di/dt for reduced recovery loss. Moreover, the boost inductor is brought inside the bridge rectifier to reduce conduction loss by decreasing the number of conducting diodes during switch turn-off. Experimental results of a 500W prototype are provided to verify the increase in efficiency and validity of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제12권5호
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• pp.708-714
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• 2012

This paper presents a new interleaved pulse-width modulation (PWM) boost-flyback converter to achieve power factor correction (PFC) and regulate DC bus voltage. The adopted boost-flyback converter has a high voltage conversion ratio to overcome the limit of conventional boost or buck-boost converter with narrow turn-off period. The proposed converter has wide turn-off period compared with a conventional boost converter. Thus, the higher output voltage can be achieved in the proposed converter. The interleaved PWM can further reduce the input and output ripple currents such that the sizes of inductor and capacitor are reduced. Since boundary conduction mode (BCM) is adopted to achieve power factor correction, power switches are turned on at zero current switching (ZCS) and switching losses are reduced. The circuit configuration, principle operation, system analysis, and design consideration of the proposed converter are presented in detail. Finally, experiments conducted on a laboratory prototype rated at 500W were presented to verify the effectiveness of the converter.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.38-46
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• 1996

The commutation operation of the current source converter for switched reluctance motor drives is analyzed in this paper. The commutation operation in the current source converter consists of two modes. At turn-off of phase switch, the phase current decreases sinusoidally, and the sum of two phase currents during commutation period is constant. At this time, the capacitor voltage increases quickly with changing polarity and decreases slowly when another phase switches turn on or off. Frequency of step-down DC chopper in the current source converter is low because of the dump such as BJTs and GTOs are possible as phase switches instead of Power MOSFET and IGBTS. They may result in reductions of conduction losses and manufacturing cost in the current source converter comparing to the voltage source converter of SRM.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.153-160
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• 2018

Recent trends in high-power-density applications have highlighted the importance of designing power converters with high-frequency operation. However, conventional LLC resonant converters present limitations in terms of high-frequency driving due to switching losses during the turn-off period. Switching losses are caused by the overlap of the voltage and current during this period, and can be decreased by reducing the switch voltage. In turn, the switch voltage can be reduced through a series connection of four switches, and additional circuitry is essential for balancing the voltage of each switch. In this work, a three-level LLC resonant converter that can operate at high frequency is proposed by reducing switch losses and balancing the voltages of all switches with only one capacitor. The voltage-balancing principle of the proposed circuit can be extended to n-level converters, which further reduces the switch voltage stress. As a result, the proposed circuit is applicable to high-input applications. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, theoretical analysis and experimental verification results from a 350 W-rated prototype are presented.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제22권4호
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• pp.345-352
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• 2017

In this paper, a non-dissipative snubber for reducing the switching losses in the step down converter is proposed. The conventional step down converter, e.g., buck converter, suffers from serious switching losses and consequentially heat generation because of its hard switching. Thus, it is unsuitable for high switching frequency operation. Reduction of the reactive components' size, such as an output inductor and capacitor, is difficult. The proposed snubber can slow down the increasing current slopes and switch voltage at turn-on and turn-off transients, thereby significantly reducing the switching loses. Additionally, the slowly increasing current during switch turn-on transition, can effectively solve the output rectifier diode reverse recovery problem. Therefore, the proposed non-dissipative snubber not only leads to the efficiency of converter operation at high switching frequency but also reduces the reactive components size in proportion to the switching frequency. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, theoretical analysis and experimental results from a 150 W, 1 MHz prototype are presented.