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Analysis and Design of a Zero-Current Switching Forward Converter With Simple Auxiliary Circuit
Ehsan Adib, Member, IEEE, and Hosein Farzanehfard, Member, IEEE
AbstractIn this paper, a new zero-current switching pulse width modulation forward converter is introduced using a new switching algorithm for the auxiliary circuit. In the proposed converter, transformer core is reset through a resonance, and thus, reset winding is not required which is the main advantage of this converter over existing zero-current switching forward converters. The simple auxiliary circuit of this converter is just composed of an auxiliary switch and a capacitor that provides zero-current switching for the main switch and also resets the transformer core. Furthermore, the proposed auxiliary circuit uses the leakage inductance of the transformer for the resonant inductor and does not require any additional inductor which is another advantage of the proposed converter over conventional zero-current switching forward converters. Also, the auxiliary switch is soft switched. The proposed converter is analyzed and design procedure of the auxiliary circuit is discussed. The presented experimental results conrm the theoretical analysis. Index TermsIsolated dcdc converters, soft switching, zerocurrent switching (ZCS).

I. INTRODUCTION

SOLATED converters are vastly applied as power supply in various applications. Forward and yback topologies are preferred for low-power applications due to their simple structure and low number of elements while full-bridge and half-bridge converters are preferred for higher power applications. In singleswitch isolated converters such as forward and yback, leakage inductance of transformer creates high voltage spikes across the switch at turn off instant. Therefore, snubber and clamp circuits are necessary in practical implementation. Resistorcapacitor diode (RCD) clamps and snubbers can reduce the switching losses and also absorb the voltage spikes across the switch, but these lossy snubbers and clamps decrease the overall converter efciency. In order to decrease the switching losses and absorb the voltage spikes while reducing the converter losses, active snubber and clamps are applied to dcdc converters [1][16]. Several active snubber and clamps are previously introduced for a forward converter to provide zero-voltage switching (ZVS) or zero-current switching (ZCS) condition. Active clamp forward and zero-voltage transition forward converters provide

Manuscript received June 26, 2010; revised September 26, 2010; accepted November 11, 2010. Date of current version December 16, 2011. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor K. Ngo. The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan 8415683111, Iran (e-mail: e.adib@cc.iut.ac.ir; hosein@cc.iut.ac.ir). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2010.2096478

ZVS condition for the converter switch [14][16]. These techniques are proper solution when MOSFET is applied as the main switch. Active clamp technique has a simple structure and its auxiliary circuit is composed of a capacitor and an auxiliary switch just like the proposed converter. But, in the active clamp technique the soft-switching condition is load dependent and soft-switching condition is lost under light load condition. In this technique, the auxiliary switch conducts current complementary to the main switch which is another drawback of the active clamp circuit for low operating duty cycles. Under this condition, the auxiliary circuit losses are high with respect to the main switch losses. Also, the active clamp circuit is applied to the phase shift pulse width modulation (PWM) full-bridge converter to provide ZCS for leading-leg switches and ZVS for the lagging-leg switches in [10]. In this converter, the softswitching condition is lost for lagging-leg switches under light load condition. The active snubber introduced in [7] provides zero-voltage condition for the forward converter main switch at turn off instant. However, an additional transformer is required for the implementation of this active snubber. When the insulated gate bipolar transistor is employed as the main switch, ZCS techniques are preferred to overcome the tailing current problem. In [11], a ZCS forward converter is introduced which uses an auxiliary circuit on the primary side of transformer. However, this auxiliary circuit is complex and also an extra winding is required to reset the transformer core just like the regular forward converter. Other methods are introduced in [12] and [13], which can be applied to a forward converter in order to provide ZCS for the main and auxiliary switches. In these methods, a simple auxiliary circuit is placed at the secondary side of transformer. These methods also require an additional transformer core reset winding and an additional inductor in the auxiliary circuit. Furthermore, in these methods, soft-switching condition is not fully achieved for the main switch at turn off instant since this switch is turned off at the transformer magnetizing inductance current. In this paper, a zero-current transition PWM forward converter is introduced which uses a simple auxiliary circuit in the secondary side of transformer. This simple auxiliary circuit is just composed of an auxiliary switch and an auxiliary capacitor. The proposed auxiliary circuit provides the ZCS condition for the main switch while the employed auxiliary switch is switched under ZCS too. Also, in this converter the transformer core is reset in a resonance fashion and no reset winding is needed. The new idea developed in this paper is based on employing an auxiliary capacitor in the secondary side of transformer for resetting the transformer core as well as providing the ZCS condition for the main switch. The important point about the proposed

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Fig. 3.

Proposed ZCT forward converter.

Fig. 1.

Forward converter of [11].

Fig. 2.

Forward converter with simple auxiliary circuit in the primary side.

converter is that the achieved soft-switching condition is not load dependent unlike the active clamp technique. In other words, when the auxiliary circuit is designed for nominal load, it can provide ZCS condition under any other load condition. The proposed converter is analyzed in Section II. Design considerations are discussed in Section III. In Section IV, experimental results are presented which conrm the theoretical analysis. II. CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION In the pervious research [11], a family of zero current transition (ZCT) converters is introduced. The forward converter of [11] is shown in Fig. 1. In this converter, the auxiliary circuit can be simplied by combining the auxiliary inductors La 1 and La 2 as shown in Fig. 2. To improve this forward converter, the auxiliary circuit is transferred to the secondary side of transformer. In this condition, the transformer leakage inductance can be used as the auxiliary inductor and no additional inductor is required for the auxiliary circuit. Furthermore, the pulsing sequence of switches is changed in a way to reset the transformer core through the auxiliary circuit. Therefore, soft-switching condition and core reset are performed through a simple auxiliary circuit which is just composed of an auxiliary capacitor and an auxiliary switch. The proposed converter is shown in Fig. 3. The main converter is composed of main switch S, main diodes D1 and D2 , output lter inductor L, and transformer T that is modeled by an ideal transformer with turns ratio of n:1, leakage

inductance LL , and magnetizing inductance Lm . The auxiliary circuit is composed of auxiliary switch Sa and auxiliary capacitor Ca . In order to simplify the converter analysis, it is assumed that the input voltage is constant and equal to Vin . Also, the inductor L current is assumed constant and equal to I0 . The proposed converter has ten operating intervals in a switching cycle. Main theoretical waveforms of the converter are shown in Fig. 4 and equivalent circuit of each operating interval is illustrated in Fig. 5. Before the rst interval, it is assumed that Ca is charged to almost 2Vin /n, the auxiliary switch is OFF, and the main switch and D1 are conducting current. Interval 1 [t0 t1 ]: The main switch is conducting current and its current is equal to (I0 /n) + IL m where IL m is the transformer magnetizing inductance current. This interval starts by turning the auxiliary switch on and a resonance begins between the transformer leakage inductance and auxiliary capacitor. Since Ca voltage is greater than Vin /n, the transformer leakage inductance current (Ilk ) decreases to zero and the main switch current decreases to IL m during this interval. Important equations of this interval are as follows: IL L = I0 (2Vin /n) (Vin /n) sin(0 (t t0 )) Z0 2Vin Vin n n (1)

VC a = where

Vin + n

cos(0 (t t0 ))

(2)

Z0 =

LL , Ca

1 0 = . LL Ca

(3)

Interval 2 [t1 t2 ]: In this interval, the resonance continues and the leakage inductance current becomes negative. Therefore, the main switch current decreases from IL m to zero. This interval ends when the leakage inductance current reaches nIL m . Equations of the previous interval can be applied to this interval too. Interval 3 [t2 t3 ]: In this interval leakage inductance current magnitude is higher than nIL m and the current is owing in the negative direction, and therefore, the body diode of the main switch conducts current. During this interval, the main switch can be turned off under ZCS. Equations of the rst interval are applicable to this interval too. At the end of this interval, Ca voltage reaches V1 which is less than Vin /n. Also, the leakage inductance current is nIL m at the end of this interval.

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follows: V C a = V1 I0 + nIL m (t t3 ). Ca (4)

Interval 5 [t4 t5 ]: In this interval, a resonance starts between the transformer magnetizing and leakage inductances and Ca . Since in this interval the transformer leakage and magnetizing inductances are placed in series, thus the leakage inductance is neglected in the analysis. During this resonance, Lm current reduces to zero and transformer core is reset. Also, D2 conducts the output inductor current during this interval. Important equations of this interval are as follows: L cos(1 (t t4 )) IL m = I m L sin(1 (t t4 )) VC a = Z1 nI m where Z1 = Lm , n2 Ca 1 = n . Lm Ca (7) (5) (6)

Interval 6 [t5 t6 ]: This interval begins when auxiliary switch current goes negative and the resonance between Lm and Ca continues through the auxiliary switch body diode. Also, D2 continues to conduct the output inductor current. Therefore, in this L . interval Ca voltage increases from its initial value Z1 nI m The maximum value of the magnetizing inductance current is L and occurs at the end of the fourth interval. The dened as I m equations of the previous interval are applicable to this interval too. The converter can be designed in a way to minimize the duration of this interval. Therefore, it can be assumed that at the end of this interval the magnetizing inductance current is almost L . zero and Ca voltage remains constant at almost Z1 nI m Interval 7 [t6 t7 ]: This interval starts by turning the main switch ON. Thus, Vin is placed across the transformer primary side and a resonance begins between the transformer leakage inductance and Ca . During this resonance, Ca voltage increases from its negative value toward zero and the Il k increases to I1 . Since the main switch current increases in a resonance fashion, thus the main switch is turned on under ZCS. Also, the transformer magnetization inductance current starts to increase linearly with a small slope due to a large value of magnetizing inductance. Important equations of this interval are as follows: IL L =
Fig. 4. Main theoretical waveforms of the proposed converter.

L (Vin /n) + Z1 nI m sin(0 (t t6 )) Z0 Vin L + Z1 nI m n

(8)

L + VC a = Z1 nI m

Interval 4 [t3 t4 ]: During this interval, Il k is almost constant and equal to nIL m , and thus, Ca is discharged with constant current equal to I0 + nIL m until its voltage reaches zero. It is important to recognize that in the transition intervals (intervals 14), Lm current can be considered constant since these intervals are very short with respect to switching period. This interval ends when Ca voltage reaches zero, and thus, D2 starts conducting current under ZVS. At the end of this interval, D1 turns off under ZVS. Important equation of this interval is as

( cos(0 (t t6 )) + 1).

(9)

Interval 8 [t7 t8 ]: This mode begins when Ca voltage reaches zero and D1 starts conducting current. Since D2 is conducting, Ca voltage remains at zero. In this interval, the transformer secondary voltage is Vin /n and the Il k increases linearly from I1 to I0 . At the end of this interval, D2 turns off. Also, there is a possibility that I1 would be equal to or slightly greater than I0 at the beginning of this interval. In such a condition, this interval would not occur. Important equation of this interval is

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Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit for each operating interval of the proposed converter: (a) [t0 t1 ], (b) [t1 t2 ], (c) [t2 t3 ], (d) [t3 t4 ], (e) [t4 t5 ], (f) [t5 t6 ], (g) [t6 t7 ], (h) [t7 t8 ], (i) [t8 t9 ], and (j) [t9 t0 + T].

as follows: Vin (t t7 ) . (10) n LL Interval 9 [t8 t9 ]: In this interval, Ca is charged to 2Vin /n (or slightly higher if interval 8 does not occur) in a resonance with IL L = I1 +

leakage inductance through the auxiliary switch body diode. Thus, Sa can be turned off any time during this mode under ZVS. At the end of this interval, Ca voltage is almost equal to 2Vin /n. Duration of this interval is half the resonance period of Ca and LL . Important equations of this interval are

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as follows: IL L = Vin sin(0 (t t8 )) nZ0 (11) (12)

TABLE I PROTOTYPE CIRCUIT PARAMETERS

VC a = Vin Vin cos(0 (t t8 )).

Interval 10 [t9 t0 + T]: In this interval, the main switch is ON and the converter behaves like a regular PWM forward converter. Duration of this interval is equal to DT where D is the operating duty cycle and T is the switching period. Magnetizing inductance current at the end of this interval is as follows: Vin D T . (13) IL m = Lm III. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS The main converter is designed like a regular PWM forward converter [17]. Therefore, only the proper value for the auxiliary capacitor should be selected. According to (1) and the discussion presented in the second interval, the following equation should be satised to guarantee the ZCS of the main switch at turn off instant: (2Vin /n) (Vin /n) I0 + nI L m (14) Z0 L m is the maximum of magnetizing inductance current where I that is equal to Vin .DT/Lm and occurs at the main switch turn off instant. Also, for I0 and Vin the converter maximum output current and minimum input voltage should be replaced accordingly. The aforesaid equation is simplied as Z0 Vin . n(I0 + nI L m ) (15) converter minimum duty cycle can be calculated approximately as following: Dm in T = n I0 LL + . Vin 0 (18)

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS A 200-W prototype converter operating at 100 kHz is implemented. The converter input voltage is 150 V and its output voltage is 32 V. Transformer magnetizing inductance in the primary side is 2 mH and its total leakage inductance in the secondary side is 2 H. The transformer turns ratio is 2 and the converter operates at the duty cycle of 0.45. Therefore, according to the design procedure, the upper and lower limits for Ca are calculated as 14 and 24 nF, respectively. A 22-nF capacitor is applied for Ca . A small air gap can considerably reduce the value of transformer magnetizing inductance which will result in greater upper limit for Ca value. Usually, small air gaps are used even in forward type converters to prevent core saturation. At high output current, according to (16), large values of Ca are required to achieve soft switching for the main switch. Consequently, the resonance period between Ca and Lm increases. Therefore, a small air gap can reduce the duration of the fth interval in order to apply the proposed converter at higher duty cycles or at higher output powers. However, an air gap will result in greater current peak of magnetizing inductance current. It is desired to have a negligible magnetizing inductance current in comparison to I0 /n for minimizing the main switch conduction losses. Therefore, large air gaps are not acceptable either and nally the upper and lower limitations for Ca lead to maximum output power limitation. Thus, the output power limitation depends on several factors such as core size, shape, air gap, and output current. However, the implemented prototype converter shows that these limitations are not serious for typical applications of forward converter. The prototype circuit parameters are illustrated in Table I. The experimental results are illustrated in Fig. 6 and the converter efciency curve is shown in Fig. 7. The RCD snubber is employed for the hard switching counterpart. The hard switched counterpart is also implemented with the same semiconductor devices in addition to the required RCD snubber. The controller schematic is shown in Fig. 8.

Thus, the rst limitation for selecting Ca can be established as following: L )2 LL n2 (I0 + nI m . (16) Ca 2 Vin In the fth interval, the transformer core should be reset. Therefore, the duration of this interval which is almost equal to (1 D)T must be greater than a quarter of resonance period of transformer magnetizing inductance and Ca . It is important to notice that the transformer magnetizing inductance current reaches zero after a quarter of resonance period in the fth interval (in other words, the core is rest). Thus, /(2w1 ) which is a quarter of resonance period between magnetizing inductance and Ca should be less than (1 D)T. This results in another limitation for selecting Ca as following: Ca 4n2 (1 D)2 T 2 . 2 Lm (17)

According to (16) and (17), by measuring the transformer leakage inductance, the upper and lower limits of Ca are calculated, and thus, Ca can be selected. The Ca value should be selected at least 20% greater than its lower limit to guarantee the softswitching condition for the main switch to compensate the conduction losses of the resonance path. Using large values for Ca will increase the main switch current stress. Since Ca should be charged to 2Vin /n before turning the main switch off, the

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V. CONCLUSION In this paper, a simple auxiliary circuit using a new switching algorithm is introduced to provide ZCS as well as resonant core reset for the regular PWM forward converter. The simple auxiliary circuit of this converter is only composed of an auxiliary switch and auxiliary capacitor that provides ZCS for the main switch while resets the transformer core. Also, ZCS condition is achieved for the auxiliary circuit of the converter. The proposed converter is analyzed, design considerations are discussed, and its various operating modes are presented. A prototype converter is implemented and the presented experimental results conrm the theoretical analysis.

REFERENCES
[1] E. Adib and H. Farzanehfard, Zero-voltage transition current-fed fullbridge PWM converter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 10411047, Apr. 2009. [2] H. Wang Q. Sun, H. S. H. Chung, S. Tapuchi, and A. Ioinovici, A ZCS current-fed full-bridge PWM converter with self-adaptable soft-switching snubber energy, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 1977 1991, Aug. 2009. [3] C. Y. Chiangand and C. L. Chen, Zero-voltage-switching control for a PWM buck converter under dcm/ccm boundary, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 9, pp. 21202126, Sep. 2009. [4] M. Mahdavi and H. Farzanehfard, Zero-current-transition bridgeless pfc without extra voltage and current stress, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 56, no. 7, pp. 25402547, Jul. 2009. [5] Y. C. Hsieh, T. C. Hsueh, and H. C. Yen, An interleaved boost converter with zero-voltage transition, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 973978, Apr. 2009. [6] E. Adiband and H. Farzanehfard, Family of soft-switching PWM converters with current sharing in switches, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 979985, Apr. 2009. [7] M. Jinno, P. Y. Chen, and K. C. Lin, An efcient active LC snubber for forward converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 15221531, Jun. 2009. [8] J. M. Kwonand and B. H. Kwon, High step-up active-clamp converter with input-current doubler and output-voltage doubler for fuel cell power systems, IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 108115, Jan. 2009. [9] M. R. Amini and H. Farzanehfard, Novel family of PWM soft-singleswitched dcdc converters with coupled inductors, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 21082114, Jun. 2009. [10] J. G. Cho, C. Y. Jeong, and F. C. Y. Lee, Zero-voltage and zerocurrent-switching full-bridge PWM converter using secondary active clamp, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 601607, Jul. 1998. [11] E. Adib and H. Farzanehfard, Family of zero-current transition PWM converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 30553063, Aug. 2008. [12] D. M. Xu, X. H. Wu, J. M. Zhang, and Z. Qian, High power high frequency half-wave-mode ZCTPWM full-bridge dcdc converter, in Proc. Appl. Power Electron. Conf. (APEC), pp. 99103, 2000, New Orleans, LA. [13] J. Zhang, X. Xie, X. Wu, G. Wu, and Z. Qian, A novel zero-currenttransition full- bridge DC/DC converter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 354360, Mar. 2006. [14] Y. Xi, P. K. Jain, Y. F. Liu, and R. Orr, A self core reset and zero voltage switching forward converter topology, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 11921203, Nov. 2000. [15] S. Yang, Z. Qian, Q. Ouyang, and F. Z. Peng, An improved active-clamp ZVS forward converter circuit, in Proc. 23rd Annu. IEEE Appl. Power Electron. Conf. (APEC) Conf., pp. 318322, Austin, TX, Feb. 2428, 2008. [16] Y. K. Lo, T. S. Kao, and J. Y. Lin, Analysis and Design of an Interleaved Active-Clamping Forward Converter, E Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 23232332, Aug. 2007. [17] A. I. Pressman, Switching Power Supply Design, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Fig. 6. Voltage (top waveform) and current (bottom waveform) of (a) main switch (vertical scale 100 V/div or 10 A/div, time scale 1 s/div), (b) auxiliary switch (vertical scale 20 V/div or 10 A/div, time scale 1 s/div), and (c) main switch waveforms under light load condition (vertical scale 100 V/div or 10 A/div, time scale 1 s/div).

Fig. 7. Efciency of the proposed converter (continuous line) and hard switching counterpart (broken line) versus output power.

Fig. 8.

Schematic of the converter controller.

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Ehsan Adib (S08M10) was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1982. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, in 2003, 2006, and 2009, respectively. He is currently a Faculty Member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology. He is the author of more than 20 papers in journals and conference proceedings. His research interests include dcdc converters and their applications and soft-switching techniques. Dr. Adib received the Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the IEEE Iran Section in 2010.

Hosein Farzanehfard (M08) was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1961. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 1983 and 1985, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, in 1992. Since 1993, he has been a Faculty Member at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan. He is the author of more than 100 papers in journals and conference proceedings. His research interests include high-frequency soft-switching converters, pulse power applications, power factor correction, active power lters, and electromagnetic interference.