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Browsing by Author "Lee, Moonhyun"

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    Digital-Based Zero-Current Switching (ZCS) Control Schemes for Three-Level Boost Power-Factor Correction (PFC) Converter
    Lee, Moonhyun (Virginia Tech, 2020-08-11)
    With the increasing demands on electronic loads (e.g. desktop, laptop, monitor, LED lighting and server) in modern technology-driven lives, performance of switched-mode power supply (SMPS) for electronics have been growing to prominence. As front-end converters in typical SMPS structure, ac-dc power-factor correction (PFC) circuits play a key role in regulations of input power factor, harmonics and dc output voltage, which has a decisive effect on entire power-supply performances. Universal ac-line and low-power system (90–264 Vrms, up to 300–400 W) is one of the most common power-supply specifications and boost-derived PFC topologies have been widely used for the purpose. In order to concurrently achieve high efficiency and low-cost system in the PFC stage, zero-current switching (ZCS) control schemes are highly employed in control principles. Representative schemes are discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and critical conduction mode (CRM). Both modes can realize ZCS turn-on without diode reverse recovery so that low switching losses and low-cost diode utilizations are obtainable. Among various boost-family PFC topologies, three-level boost (TLB) converter has generated considerable research interest in high-voltage high-power applications. It is mainly due to the fact that the topology can have halved component voltage stresses, improved waveform qualities and electromagnetic interference (EMI) from phase interleaved continuous conduction mode (CCM) operations, compared to other two-level boost PFC converters. On the other hand, in the field of universal-line low-power applications, TLB PFC has been thoroughly out of focus since doubled component counts and increased control complexity than two-level topologies are practical burden for the low-cost systems. However, recent researches on TLB PFC with ZCS control schemes have found that cost-competitiveness of the topology is actually comparable to two-level boost PFC converters because the halved component voltage stresses enable usage of low voltage-rating components of which unit prices are cheaper than higher-rating ones. Based on the justification, researches on ZCS control schemes for TLB PFC have been conducted to get enhanced waveform qualities and performance factors. Following the research stream, a three-level current modulation scheme that can be adopted in both DCM and CRM is proposed in Chapter 2 of this dissertation. Main concept of the proposed current modulation is additional degree-of-freedom in current-slope shaping by differentiating on-times of two active switches, which cannot be found from any other single-phase boost-derived PFC topologies. Using the multilevel feature, proposed operations in one switching period consist of three steps: common-switch on-time, single-switch on-time and common-switch off-time. The single-switch on-time step is key design factor of the proposed modulation that can be utilized either in fixed or adjustable form depending on control purpose. Based on the basic modulation concept, three-level CRM control scheme, adjustable three-level DCM control scheme, and spread-spectrum frequency modulation (SSFM) with adjustable three-level DCM scheme are proposed in Chapter 3–5, respectively. In each chapter, implemented control scheme aims to improve different performance factors. In Chapter 3, the proposed three-level CRM scheme uses increased single-switch on-time period to reduce peak inductor current and magnitude of variable switching frequency. It is generally accepted fact that CRM operations suffer from high switching losses and poor efficiency at light load due to considerable increment of switching frequency. Thus, efficiency improvement effect by the proposed CRM scheme becomes remarkable as load condition goes lighter. In experimental verifications, maximum improvement is measured by 1.2% at light load (20%) and overall efficiency is increased by at least 0.4% all over the load range. In Chapter 4, three-level DCM control scheme adopts adjustable single-switch on-time period in fixed switching-frequency framework. The purpose of adjustable control scheme is to widen the length of non-zero inductor current period as much as possible so that discontinued current period and high peak current of DCM operations can be minimized. Experiment results show that, compared to conventional two-level DCM control, full-load peak inductor currents are reduced by 20.2% and 17.1% at 110 and 220 Vrms input voltage conditions, respectively. Moreover, due to turn-off switching energy decrements by the turn-off current reductions, efficiency is also improved by at least 0.4% regardless of input voltage and load conditions. In Chapter 5, a downward SSFM technique is developed first for DCM operations of boosting PFC converters including two-level topologies. This chapter aims to achieve significant reduction of high differential-mode (DM) EMI amplitudes from DCM operations, which is major drawback of DCM control. By using the simple linearized frequency modulation, peak DM EMI noise at full load condition is reduced by 12.7 dBμV than conventional fixed-frequency DCM control. On top of the proposed SSFM, the adjustable three-level DCM control scheme in Chapter 4 is adopted to get further reductions of EMI noises. Experimental results prove that the collaborations of SSFM and adjustable DCM scheme reduce the EMI amplitudes further by 2.5 dBμV than the result of SSFM itself. The reduced EMI amplitudes are helpful to design input EMI filter with higher cut-off frequency and smaller size. Different from two-level boosting PFC converters, TLB PFC topology has two output capacitors in series and inherently suffers from voltage unbalancing issue, which can be noted as topological trade-off. In Chapter 6, two simple but effective voltage balancing schemes are introduced. The balancing schemes can be easily built into the proposed ZCS control schemes in Chapter 3–5 and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed balancing principles. For all the proposed control schemes in this dissertation, detailed operation principles, derivation process of key equations, comparative analyses, implementation method with digital controller and experimental verifications with TLB PFC prototype are provided.