Isolated Bi-directional Full-bridge Soft-switching DC-DC Converter with Active and Passive Snubbers

T.-F. Wu, J.-G. Yang, C.-L. Kuo and S.-Z. Lan

Elegant Power Application Research Center (EPARC) Department of Electrical Engineering National Chung Cheng University Ming-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, 621 Taiwan E-mail: ieetfwu@ccu.edu.tw Tel: 886-5-2428159; Fax 886-5-2720862
Abstract -- An isolated bi-directional full-bridge soft-switching dc-dc converter with high conversion ratio, high output power, soft start-up and soft-switching capability for battery charging/discharging is proposed in this paper. The use of an active flyback and two passive capacitor-diode snubbers can alleviate the voltage spike caused by the current difference between the leakage inductance of the transformer and the current-fed inductor, can reduce the current spike due to diode reverse recovery, and can reduce current and voltage stresses, while achieving near ZVS and ZCS soft-switching features for the switches on the both sides. It can improve system reliability for high power applications. In the paper, operational principle of the proposed converter will be first described, and analysis and design of the proposed converter is then presented. A 1.5 kW prototype with low-side voltage of 48 V and high-side voltage of 360 V has been implemented, from which experimental results have verified its feasibility.

I. INTRODUCTION In renewable dc supply systems, batteries are usually required to back-up power for the electronic equipment. The voltage levels of batteries are typically much lower than the dc-bus voltage. Bi-directional converters for charging/discharging the batteries are therefore required. For high power applications, bridge-type isolated bi-directional converters have been widely studied and adopted for fuel cell systems and electric vehicle applications [1]-[6]. For raising power level, a dual full-bridge configuration is usually adopted [7]-[15], and their low side and high side are typically configured with boost-type and buck-type topologies respectively. However, component stress, switching loss and EMI noise are increased due to diode reverse recovery current and MOSFET drain-source voltage, resulting in low reliability. A more severe issue is due to leakage inductance of the isolation transformer, which will result in high voltage spike during switching transition. A possible solution is to pre-charge the leakage inductance to raise its current level up to that of current-fed inductor, which can reduce their

current difference and, in turn, reduce voltage spike. However, since the current level varies with load condition, it is hard to tune the switching timing to match these two currents. Thus, a passive or an active snubber circuit is still needed. Passive and active clamp circuits were proposed to suppress the voltage spike due to the current difference between the current-fed inductor and leakage inductance of the isolation transformer [13]-[14]. The simplest approach is employing an RCD sunbber to clamp the voltage, and the energy absorbed in the buffer capacitor will be dissipated on the resistor, resulting in a lower efficiency. A simple active clamping circuit [13] was proposed, which suits for bi-directional converters. However, the resonant current will flow through the main switches which will increase current stress significantly. An isolated bi-directional converter with a flyback snubber was therefore proposed [16]. The flyback snubber can recycle the absorbed energy which is stored in the clamping capacitor, while without current flowing through the main switches. It can also clamp the voltage to a desired value just slightly higher than the voltage across the low-side transformer. Since the snubber current does not circulate through the main switches, current stress can be reduced a lot under heavy load condition. Furthermore, the flyback snubber can be controlled to precharge the high-side capacitor to avoid inrush current during a start-up stage. However, the low-side switches are operated with hard switching turn-off under step-up mode. To solve the above mentioned limitation, two passive capacitor-diode snubbers are introduced to supplement the active flyback snubber in this paper. This proposed snubber configuration can not only alleviate the voltage spike caused by the current difference between the leakage inductance of the transformer and the current-fed inductor, but can relieve the drawbacks of high current and high voltage stresses imposed on the main switches at both

978-1-4244-8085-2/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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turn-on and turn-off transitions, and achieve near ZVS and ZCS for the switches on the both sides. II. CONFIGURATION AND OPERATION The proposed isolated bi-directional soft-switching dc-dc converter with an active flyback and two passive capacitor-diode snubbers is shown in Fig. 1. The proposed converter is operated with two types of conversion: step-up conversion and step-down conversion. Fig. 1 consists of a current-fed switch bridge, an active flyback snubber at the low-voltage side, a voltage-fed switch bridge, and a snubber pair at the high-voltage side. Inductor Lm performs output filtering when power flows from high-voltage side to low-voltage side, which is denoted as a step-down conversion. On the other hand, it works in step-up conversion when power is transferred from low-voltage side to high-voltage side. Moreover, sunbber capacitor CS and diode DC are used to absorb the current difference between current-fed inductor current iL and leakage inductance current ip of isolation transformer Tp during switching communication. The flyback snubber is operated to transfer the energy from snubber capacitor CS to buffer capacitors Cb1 and Cb2, and voltage VCS can drop to zero. Thus, the voltage stress of switches M1 ~ M4 can be limited to a lower level, achieving near ZCS turn-off. The major merit of the proposed snubber includes no spike current circulating through the switches and achieving soft-switching manner. Note that high spike current can result in charge migration, over current density and extra magnetic force which will deteriorate in MOSFET carrier density, channel width and wire bonding and, in turn, increase its conduction resistance. The operational waveforms in step-up conversion are shown in Fig. 2. In step-up conversion, switches M1 ~ M4 are controlled, and the body diodes of switches M5 ~ M8 are used as a rectifier. In step-down conversion, switches M5 ~ M8 are controlled, and the body diodes of switches M1 ~ M4 operate as a rectifier. To simplify the steady-state analysis, several assumptions are made as follows: (1) All components are ideal. The transformer is treated as an ideal transformer associated with leakage inductance. (2) Inductor Lm is large enough to keep the current iL constant over a switching period. (3) Snubber capacitor CS is much larger than the parasitic capacitance of switches M1 ~ M8.

Fig. 2. Operational waveforms in step-up conversion.

A. Step-up Conversion In the step-up conversion, switches M1 ~ M4 are operated like a boost converter, where switch pairs (M1, M2) and (M3, M4) conduct to store energy in Lm. At the high-voltage side, the body diodes D5 ~ D8 of the switches will conduct to transfer power to VHV. When switch pairs (M1, M2) and (M3, M4) are switched to (M1, M4) or (M2, M3), current difference iC (= iL iP ) will charge capacitor CS until iP rises up to iL, and capacitor voltage VCS will be clamped to VHV ( NP / NS ), achieving near ZCS turn-off for M2 or M4. In the meantime, high-side current iS has the priority flowing through one of the two passive capacitor-diode snubbers, and either Cb1 or Cb2 will be fully discharged before diode D5 or D7 conducting. When switch pair (M1, M4) or (M2, M3) is switched back to (M1, M2) and (M3, M4), switches M2 or M4 can have near ZCS turn-on feature due to leakage inductance Lll limiting the di/dt of high-side diode reverse recovery current. The flyback snubber operates simultaneously to discharge snubber capacitor CS, and transfer the stored energy to buffer capacitors Cb1 and Cb2. With the flyback snubber, the energy absorbed in CS will not flow through switches M1 ~ M4, which can reduce their current stress dramatically when the leakage inductance of the isolation transformer is significant.

Fig. 1. An isolated bi-directional full-bridge soft-switching dc-dc converter with an active flyback and two passive capacitor-diode snubbers.

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(a)

Mode 1

(b)

Mode 2

(c)

Mode 3

(d)

Mode 4

(e)

Mode 5

(f)

Mode 6

(g) Mode 7 Fig. 3. Operation modes of step-up conversion.

The operation waveforms in step-up conversion are shown in Fig. 2. A detailed description for a half-switching cycle operation is presented as follows: Mode 1 [t0 t < t1 ]: Before t0, all of the four switches M1 ~ M4 are turned on. Inductor Lm is charged by VLV. At t0, M1 and M4 remain conducting, while M2 and M3 are turned off. Then, clamping diode DC conducts, and snubber capacitor CS is charged by the current difference iC (=iL(t1)-iP(t1)). In this mode, the flyback snubber still stays in the off state. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(a). Mode 2 [t1 t < t2 ]: In this mode, leakage inductance current iP will start to track current iL, and buffer capacitor Cb1 will start to release energy. At time t2, current iP is equal to current iL. At the same time, the voltage of switches M2, M3 and capacitor CS will reach the maximum value simultaneously, and an equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(b). A near ZCS soft switching is therefore attained during t0 to t2. Mode 3 [t2 t < t3 ]: Before t3, the energy stored in buffer capacitor Cb1 is not fully discharged yet. Thus, the capacitor will not stop discharging until VCS drops to zero. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(c). Mode 4 [t3 t < t4 ]: When the energy stored in Cb1 has been completely released to the output at t3, diode D5 will conduct. The circuit operation over this interval is identical to a regular turn-off state of a conventional current-fed full bridge converter. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(d). Mode 5 [t4 t < t5 ]: At t4, all of the four switches M1 ~ M4 are turned on again, and switch MS of the flyback snubber is turned on synchronously. Switches M2 and M3 achieve a ZCS turn-on soft-switching feature, and current iP drops to zero gradually. In the flyback snubber, the energy stored in capacitor CS will be delivered to the magnetizing inductance of transformer TS. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(e). Mode 6 [t5 t < t6 ]: When switch MS is turned off at t5, capacitor voltage VCS drops to zero, and the energy stored in the magnetizing inductance of transformer TS starts to transfer to buffer capacitor Cb1 by way of Db1. In this mode, the time interval of driving signal Vgs(Ms) is slightly higher than the discharging time of capacitor CS. The purpose is to ensure that the energy stored in capacitor CS can be completely released, creating a ZCS operational opportunity at next turn-off transition. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(f). Mode 7 [t6 t < t7 ]: In this mode, the energy stored in the magnetizing inductance of transformer TS was completely transferred to buffer capacitor Cb1 at t6, and the equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 3(g). The circuit operation over this interval is identical to a regular turn-on state of a conventional current-fed full bridge converter. It stops at t7 and completes a half-switching cycle operation.

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B. Step-down Conversion In the analysis, leakage inductance of the transformer at the low-voltage side is reflected to the high voltage side, in which equivalent inductance Leq* equals (Llh + Lll . Ns2 / Np2). In the step-down conversion, switches M5 ~ M8 are operated like a buck converter in which switch pairs (M5, M8) and (M6, M7) take turn conducting to transfer power from VHV to VLV. For alleviating leakage inductance effect on voltage spike, switches M5 ~ M8 are operated with phase-shift control, achieving ZVS turn-on features. Although, there is no need to absorb the current difference between iL and iP, capacitor CS can help clamp the voltage ringing due to Leq* and parasitic capacitance of M1 ~ M4. By way of two passive capacitor-diode snubbers, switches M6 and M8 can achieve near ZCS turn-off.

(d)

Mode 4

(e) Mode 5 Fig. 5. Operation modes of step-down conversion.

Fig. 4. Operation waveforms of step-down conversion

(a)

Mode 1

(b)

Mode 2

(c)

Mode 3

The operational waveforms of step-down conversion are shown in Fig. 4. A detailed description of a half-switching cycle operation is presented as follows: Mode 1 [t0 t < t1 ]: In this mode, switches M5 and M8 are turned on, while M6 and M7 are in the off state. The high-side voltage VHV is immediately exerted on the transformer, and the whole voltage in fact is exerted on equivalent inductance Leq* and cause the current to rise with the slope of VHV / Leq*. With the transformer current increasing toward the load current level at t1, the body diodes of switches pair (D1, D4) are conducting to transfer power, and the voltage across the transformer terminals on the current-fed switches changes immediately to reflect the voltage from the voltage-fed side. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(a). Mode 2 [t1 t < t2 ]: At t1, M8 remains conducting, while M5 is turned off. The body diode of M6 then starts to conduct the freewheeling leakage current. The transformer current reaches the load-current level at t1, and VAB rises to the reflected voltage ( VHV . NP / NS ). Clamping diode DC starts to conduct the resonant current of Leq* and clamping capacitor CS. The process ends at t2 when the resonance goes through a half resonant cycle and is blocked by clamping diode DC. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(b). Mode 3 [t2 t < t3 ]: At t2, the body diode of switch M6 conducting, M6 can be turned on with ZVS. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(c). Mode 4 [t3 t < t4 ]: At t3, M6 remains conducting, while M8 is turned off. The body diode of M7 then starts to conduct the freewheeling current. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(d). Mode 5 [t4 t < t5 ]: At t4, with the body diode of switch M7 conducting, M7 can be turned on with ZVS. Over this interval, the active switches change to another pair of diagonal switches, and the voltage on the transformer reverses its polarity. It stops at t5 and completes a half-switching cycle operation. The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(e).

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III. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATION The purpose of using an active flyback snubber is to transfer energy from snubber capacitor CS to buffer capacitors Cb1 and Cb2, which can attain a ZCS soft-switching feature. The key components of CS and flyback snubber are designed in the following: 1. Snubber capacitor Due to recycling the absorbed energy stored in the snubber capacitor, it needs to be satisfied with the maximum required energy. Therefore, the clamping capacitor is determined as: Leq i(iL i p )2 . (1) CS VCS 2 Flyback converter In the interval of t0 t t2, a high transient voltage occurs in the boost mode due to the current difference between the leakage inductance of the transformer and the current-fed inductor, which can be suppressed by DC and CS. The energy stored in capacitor CS is transferred to buffer capacitor Cb1 and Cb2 by a flyback converter. Power rating of the flyback converter can be expressed as

soft-switching feature. Fig. 8 shows measured waveforms of voltage Vds(M4) and current Ids(M4) at turn-off transition under step-up conversion. It can be observed that the proposed snubber can not only achieve near ZCS turn-off soft-switching feature, but can alleviate the voltage spike, which can improve system reliability. Fig. 9 shows plots of conversion efficiency of the conventional and the proposed converters. It can be observed that the conversion efficiency of the proposed converter is around 90 % ~ 92 %. The conversion efficiency under full load condition is about 89.9 %.

2.

PFB = 0.5CS VCS2 fS, where fS is the switching frequency. 3.

(2)

(VCS: 50 V/div, Vds(M4): 50 V/div, Time:2 s/div) (a)

Soft start-up High inrush current is a start-up problem of the isolated boost converter. The initial high-side voltage VHV should not lower than VLV NS / NP to avoid inrush current. The proposed flyback snubber can be controlled to precharge the high-side capacitor to achieve a soft start-up feature.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT To verify the operational principle and performance of the proposed converter, two experimental prototypes of 1.5 kW, the full-bridge converter with a conventional flyback snubber and the one with proposed active and passive snubbers, were designed and built. The specifications of the proposed converter are listed as follows: VLV = 48V, iL = 30A, VHV = 360V, turns ratio: N = 4.26, fs = 25 kHz, Lll = 0.5 H, Llh = 9 H, Lm = 500 H, CS = 0.33 F, Cb1 = Cb2 = 4.7 nF and PO = 1.5 kW. Voltage waveforms of snubber capacitor VCS and Vds(M4) under step-up conversion for a conventional flyback snubber and the ones with the proposed active and passive snubbers are shown in Fig. 6. It can be observed that snubber capacitor CS can be fully discharged by the proposed snubber, and moreover, it alleviate the voltage spike of Vds(M4). Fig. 7 shows measured waveforms of voltage Vds(M4) and current Ids(M4) at turn-on transition under step-up conversion. Obviously, both conventional flyback snubber and the proposed can achieve ZCS turn-on

(VCS:100 V/div, Vds(M4):50 V/div, time:10 s/div) (b) Fig. 6. Measured voltage waveforms of VCS and Vds(M4) for (a) conventional flyback snubber and (b) the proposed active and passive snubber under step-up conversion with a 1.5 kW power rating.

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(Vds(M4):50 V/div, Ids(M4):10 A/div, Time:1 s/div) (a)

(Vds(M4):50 V/div, Ids(M4):10 A/div, Time:1 s/div) (b) Fig. 8. Measured voltage Vds(M4) and current Ids(M4) waveforms at turn-off transition for (a) conventional flyback snubber and (b) the proposed active and passive snubber under step-up conversion with a 1.5 kW power rating.
0.93 0.92 0.91 0.9 0.89 0.88 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

(Vds(M4):50 V/div, Ids(M4):10 A/div, Time:1 s/div) (b) Fig. 7. Measured voltage Vds(M4) and current Ids(M4) waveforms at turn-on transition for (a) conventional flyback snubber and (b) the proposed active and passive snubber under step-up conversion with a 1.5 kW power rating.

Fig. 9. Plots of the conversion efficiency of the converter with a conventional flyback snubber and that with the proposed under step-up conversion.

(Vds(M4):50 V/div, Ids(M4):10 A/div, Time:1 s/div) (a)

V. CONCLUSIONS This paper has presented an isolated bi-directional full-bridge soft-switching dc-dc converter for high power applications. The use of an active flyback and two passive capacitor-diode snubbers can alleviate the voltage spike caused by the current difference between the leakage inductance of the transformer and the current-fed inductor, can reduce the current spike due to diode reverse recovery, and can reduce current and voltage stresses, while achieving near ZVS and ZCS soft-switching features for the switches on the both sides. Since the current does not circulate through the full-bridge switches, their current stresses can be reduced dramatically under heavy load condition, which can improve system reliability significantly. An experimental prototype of 1.5 kW isolated bi-directional full-bridge dc-dc converter with active and passive snubbers has been implemented to verify its feasibility.
[1]

[2]

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