Soft Switching Inverter
INTRODUCTION
Inverters have many applications in power-electronic devices, such as motor
drives, active-power filters, and uninterruptible power supplies. In order to reduce
the size of output filter and eliminate audio noise, switching frequency must be
increased. In hard-switching inverters, higher switching frequency leads to
increased switching losses, which consequently increase the size of snubber
circuits and heat sinks. In addition, electromagnetic interference increases, and
efficiency is decreased. To overcome these problems, applying soft switching
techniques is essential. In this inverter without any switch in its auxiliary circuit is
presented. All semiconductor components are soft switched. The dc-link switch is
turned on under zero current switching (ZCS) condition and turned off under
almost ZVS condition. Also, the auxiliary diode in this circuit turns on under ZVS
condition and turns off under ZCS condition. In this project, the weaknesses are
eliminated by modifying the operating modes. Furthermore, the practical results,
along with more comprehensive analysis, are included.
OBJECTIVES
To present the detailed steady-state operation and analysis with natural-
clamping or zero-current-switching turn-off concept by secondary
modulation.
Use soft switching boost converter to perform ZVS and ZCS to improve the
efficiency of a boost.
To experimentally demonstrate the converter performance and claimed
natural commutation, soft-switching (ZCS of primary devices and ZVS of
secondary devices) over wide voltage and power transfer variations.
Use hysteresis current controller to utilize its several undesirable features,
such as variable switching frequency of the inverter stage and drastically
increasing switching frequency when the band width is narrow.
To decrease the switching stress and loss, because all of the switches are
turned on and off with ZVS and ZCS.
To illustrate the design of the proposed converter
To present and discuss simulation results of the proposed converter and
modulation to verify the presented analysis and design
APPLICATION
1. Photovoltaic Application
Exponentially increasing difference between global energy demand and
limited availability of fossil fuels due to fast depletion has resulted in paradigm
shift toward alternate and sustainable energy sources in last few decades. In order
to cover this increasing global energy demand and supply gap, solar energy is
proving to be one of the most promising solutions. Alternate/distributed energy
sources like solar, wind, etc. produces unregulated and discontinuous output and,
therefore cannot be used in its original form. A power conditioner is essential to
obtain a regulated and stable output in useful form across the load. This also assists
in extracting the maximum power from the source. These energy sources are
integrated together with the energy storage for back-up power to form a distributed
generating system focusing on long-term sustainability. In order to convert
unregulated dc output from PV into useful ac form, power electronic inverters are
essential. Various front-end converter topologies and inverter schemes have been
proposed for a single-phase PV inverter.
This work proposes a novel snubberless secondary modulation-based
naturally clamped soft switching current-fed half-bridge dc/dc converter.
Secondary modulation diverts the current from primary switch into the
transformer, causing transformer current to rise and the primary switch current to
fall to zero naturally resulting in zero-current turn-off [zero-current switching
(ZCS)] and clamping the voltage across the devices without any additional snubber
/ active clamp. Secondary-side switches undergo ZVS enhancing the converter
performance. “Snubberless operation” term is used in this paper relative to existing
current-fed topologies, where active-clamping or passive lossy snubbers are
employed to limit the voltage spike across the switches at their turn-off. In the
proposed converter topology, voltage is limited by secondary modulation without
such snubbers.
2. Electrical Vehicle
Vehicle inverter is now spreading across the world. Top-end Audi and
Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) cars are enjoying comfort and convenience of
vehicle inverters. Most traditional vehicle inverters are composed by two stages:
DC/DC converter and DC/AC inverter. To achieve 220V Root-Mean-Square
(RMS) sine wave, the input voltage of DC/AC inverter should be at least 360Vdc
in a highly efficient manner. It is worth noticing that the vehicle battery presents
low voltage characteristic (10.8V to 16V, typical 12V), the DC/AC inverter must
have a high voltage conversion ratio DC/DC converter on the front end.
Considering life span of vehicle battery, mounting space and natural cooling,
DC/DC converter with low-input current ripple, high operation frequency and high
efficiency are required in this application. Besides, galvanic isolation is necessary
to meet the safety standards.
In this system, resonance analysis and soft switching design of the
isolated boost converter with coupled inductors are presented. The schematic of
converter is Compared with the former proposed converter, both ZVS on of the
main MOSFETs and zero current switching (ZCS) off of the secondary diodes are
obtained collectively at the same working conditions without any additional
devices. Moreover, the range of duty ratio is enlarged due to the design and an
optimal operation point is obtained when duty ratio approaches 0.5 and the ripple
of input current moves in close to zero. The volume of the converter can also be
decreased because of smaller transformers and smaller capacitors. A DC/DC
converter for vehicle inverter is implemented to verify the design.
3. For Induction Heating (IH) Cooking Appliances
This project represents the practical evaluations of time sharing high-
frequency resonant soft-switching inverter composed of two multi-resonant sub
inverter cells in parallel for common series resonant load for all metal induction
heating (IH) cooking appliances. Together with a fixed switching frequency
resonant current, IH power regulation is carried out by phasor angle control
scheme with phase-shifted PWM scheme. In particular, this high-frequency multi-
resonant inverter can efficiently operate under the conditions of load resonant
frequency changing mode; frequency doubler mode (100 kHz) for low resistivity
metal IH loads and fundamental switching frequency mode (50 kHz) for high
resistivity metal IH loads, respectively. The feasible performance of the time-
sharing high frequency inverter will be demonstrated and discussed in detail.
4. For Traction Motor Drives
