This material may be protected by Copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code) A HIGH-POWER-FACTOR BUCK CONVERTER Hisahito ENDO, Takashi YAMASHITA, and Toshiyuki SUGIURA NIT Interdiscipl inary Research Laboratories 3-9-1, Hidori-cho, Musastino-shi, Tokyo 180 Japan Telephone +81 422 59 4016 Pacsin Abstract: A hish-pover-factor buck converter is proposed. The converter is composed of rectifier diodes, a snall input capacitor and a buck con~ verter. It supplies low output voltages and uses low voltage seniconductor devices and ceramic capacitors. Two operation modes exist in the converter; discontinuous and continuous inductor current modes, Analysis and experinentation show that the converter’s pover factor is over 0.9 in discontinuous sode by constant duty ratio opere~ tion. Horeover, it is clarified that » poxer factor decreases to about 0.7 in continuous mode by con- stant duty ratio operation, and it can be improved to over 0.9 by a new input current control systen. 1, 1nrRODUCTION After the bridge rectifier, a capacitor-input filter is used to derive DC voltage from an AC con nercial power source. With this filter, hovever, the input line current pulsates. The pulsating cur- rent increases the reactive power and input current haraonics, To reduce then, a high power factor technique is desired. One wey to increase the power factor is to insert @ large input inductor(1)(2]. But this is undesirable as the inductor would increase the size of the rectifier circuit, since the time constant of the inductor and the capacitor must be large. Recently, an AC-DC converter has been studied as a high-pover-factor pre-regulator circuit, The nost general power stage circuit of the converter is a boost converter(3][4](5]. The boost converter has an advantage in that continuous inductor cur- rent which is equal to the input current can be controlled to shape a sinusoidal wavefora and therefore achieve a unity pover factor. Yet, evitable disadvantages exist, that is, the output voltage must be higher than the input voltage and a high voltage switch and diode are required. Fur- ‘thermore, @ high voltage transforser and semicon~ ductor devices aust be used for the attached DC-DC converter to supply low output voltege. je #81 422 59 2172 In this work, @ buck converter is used in a power stage of a high-pover-factor converter. Since ‘the buck converter supplies low output voltages, it can use lox voltage semiconductor devices and a ceranic capacitor as an output capacitor, instead of a finite lifetine electrolytic capacitor. this converter features high-speed switching for @ snall size, and high reliability. However, the input cur~ rent doesn’t appeer when an input voltage is lover than an output voltage. This is the nain reason why the buck converter has not been used for high- pover-factor converters. This paper proves that the buck converter can Improve the poxer factor sufficiently and presents @ new input current control systen. 2, AG-DC CIRCUITS Figure 1 shows a capacitor-filtered rectifier and AC-DC high-pover-factor converters. In the capacitor-filtered rectifier, the in- put current bursts into bulk capacitor Cy ina brief tine (seo Fig.2 (a)). This burst current causes & very low pover factor. For the high-pover-factor boost converter, several Input current wave-shaping methods are proposed, These nethods each result in an input current vavefora similar to the input voltage vaveforn, and thus the power factor is unity provided the input current ripple at the switching frequency is negligible. ‘The high-power-factor buck converter has full-bridge rectifier diodes like the other tvo circuits. But the input. capacitor Ci can be small enough to filter input current 1 (since switch current is’ is chopped) while the input voltage is higher then the output voltage. This is because the switching frequency is sufficiently higher than the Input AC comercial frequency. The buck con~ verter operates under to inductor current nodes: discontinuous mode and continuous mode, In the fol- lowing section, the pover factor of the buck con~ verter is analyzed in both modes, 0-7803-0695-3/92 $3,00 © 1992 IEEE7 | (a) Capacitor-filtered rectifier iy (b) High-pover-factor boost cor L— verter Qa iy iv sie (©) High-power: factor buck converter Fig.1 AC-DC circuits 3, POWER FACTOR ANALYSIS 1 Asaumption This analysis assunes the following. The duty ratlo D of the main switch Q Is constant, » 2) The output voltage Vs is constant, 3) The input current i, is an average of switch current 44’. 4) The input voltage during one switching period is constant, 5) Switch @ and diode Ds are ideal. 6) There are no parasitic elements in the cir~ cuit. 2 Discontinuous inductor current_node Input and output voltages and inductor cur- rent are shown in Pig.3 for a half cycle of input AC (connercial). The current appears when the in- put voltage is higher than the output voltege. The start tine t. and end tine t, are described as Ve vi Lin w (2) where Vi is a peak value of an input voltage and Ts is the AC connercial cycle, An inductor current 1072 (a) Capacitor-filtered rectifier (0) High-pover-factor boost converter (c) High-pover-fector buck converter Fig.2 Haveforns of input voltage and current waveforn in one switching period is shoxn In Fig.4. If the switch Q turns on at time t, the inductor current peak ie is given by Visino t-V.)DT, ~ L B where Ts is a switching period. The discontinuous node is realized when the inductor current reaches zero during switch off interval Therefore, the discontinuous condition is ob- tained as (3) (-p)T.> (4) Then, Vs Dev (8)The input current iy averaged inductor current. D: is equal to the on-tine i (s) Substituting 9, (3) into a. (8), 4 is derived as (Wisinw t-VoD*Ts 20 A ‘This equation means that the input current 4, is ilar to 2) Visine t-V., and is close to a sinusoidal vavefore if V. is low. Figure 5 shows calculated input current waveforms. The operating conditions and paraneter are Visld1 V, V,=40 ¥, w=100% rad/sec, Te=20 msec, Ts=2 sec and L=30 wi, Calculations and experinentations in this paper basically use these conditions and paraneters unless they are specified in figures. In this calculation, the discontinuous node condition is D<0. 284, ig.3 Haveforas of input and output voltage and inductor current !DTs «nm! Pig.4 Inductor current wavefora in one svitching period 1073 cad ot Cred) Fig.5 Calculated input current waveforms in discontinuous sode The power factor is defined as Pp ae (8) Paks Vie where P is the active pover, and Viros and Tires are the RMS values of input voltage and Input cur- rents respectively, P and. Tina are ennlneed as t [veninn sa f 7 Viper. "40 Lae de zine 2V.VVI-VE mvt ) 2 ig Ja-gewys) ~SYAVEVE | (0) mvt . These equetions show that P and Tim are directly proportional to the square of the duty ratio and inversely proportional to the inductance value, respectively. Gonbining Bqs.(8). (9) and (10), the power factor of the buck converter is obtained as 2aVi—a* = Jirseeo(- Baa) Saline ay where @ is the ratio of input voltage to output voltage V./Vi. It should be noted that the pover eine a PPSfactor is affected by only one paraneter, a. Bx- perimental end theoretical results are plotted in Pig. 6, which shovs that a pover factor over 0.9 can be achieved for a<0.6, whereas it decreases abruptly for 0.8. This result means thet high power factor can be obtained at low output voltages. Hovever, © large active pover can not be obtained at lov output voltage. This is because ac~ tive pover is directly proportional to the squere of the duty ratio, and the duty ratio is limited by the discontinuous node condition (Bq. (5)): L ool —S ost Vi=60¥ Output current : 0.1 A constant eof + tienen bata oat [—eatcuuaren ata VEO Fig.6 Power factor in discontinuous mode Figure 7 shows the relationship between ac- tive power and output voltage. This figure indi- cates that the available active power changes widely according to the output voltage. The waxinun active pover Pes: can be obtained at 0.58 under any condition. This is explained as follows. ros Bq. (5). ‘the maxinua value of D is V./ vs Thus, considering p=¥ (12) Vi and substituting Bq. (12) into Bq. (9), the following equation is obtained. OPLaViTs(, 24, sav *) seein ssite a a) Substituting op Sieo co) into Bq. (13) yields the condition that a is nearly equal to 0.88. When @ is 0.58, the power factor is 0,914. From discontinuous sode analysis, an a of around 0.58 can produce @ high power factor of about 0.9 and a comparatively large active pover by simple constant-duty ratio operation, 1074 So 60-00 do 120" 140-160 TT 200 ve ov) Fig.7 Active pover and output voltage 3.9 Continuous inductor current_node continuous inductor current node is required for converter operation if a higher pover factor over 0.9 and a larger active pover are necessary, Concerning inductor current #2, the following two differential equations are given for the on in- terval and off interval of the main switch Q. On interval: dict sina t~ 16 Git Ly.sinot-V (15) oft interval: fisy, (1s) at Conbining these equations by state space averaging, the averaged inductor current 2, is derived as DVioswt Vat Gye eee «a7) where I, is the initial inductor current, The in- ductor current becones continuous when (1s) At t=te %. equals d6/2. Thus, I. is given by re DVioee ts, Vat G-D)TLV, (19) Conbining &qs.(17) and (19) yields Fue DY Mens tees t) c OL. (2) The tine ty when the inductor current becones dis- continuous is obtained froa the folloving to equa- tions.Q-DV.Ts Ss (a) DVicosw t+V.0 t —Vesin SF —VDIVIHVe 0. (2) Since these equations are non-linear equetions, te can not be solved algebraically, By nuserical analysis, the input current i, and the power fac- tor are calculated as in Figs.8 and 9. The input current i, becomes extrenely large in the con- tinuous node es D increases, This indicates that higher pover can be obtained in this mode than in the discontinuous ode, The power factor characteristics are very complicated and D has an iaportant influence on thea. The power factor is roughly constant vhen a snall conpared with D, but changes drastically near the boundary condition D=a because the con- tinuous period is short and the input current peak near w t=n/2 is very high. As a whole, if the duty ratio remains constent, the power factor in the continuous mode is lover than in the discon- tinuous node. 30 72 ® ot Crad) Fig.8 Calculated input current vavefora in continuous ode 8 02a os oa To Fig.9 Calculated power factor in continuous rode To improve the ‘pover factor in the continuous node, therefore, the duty ratio control based on sensing Input current is nesded. Figure 10 shows the basic schenatic of an input current sensing buck converter. The reference vaveforn of the input current is generated by substracting and aultiply- ing the input voltage and output voltage. Since the reference voltage is similar to Visino t-Ve ‘the input current vavefors is controlled like it is In the discontinuous node. The power factor is, therefore, same as Eq. (10). 8xperinental and theoretical results of the poxer factor are plotted in Fig. Me INeUT CURRENT Sense | y {mucneTen] +_[ireararon| Fig.10 Input current sensing buck converter 14 og} Vi=20 ¥ Output current : 0.05 A constant MEASURED DATA = CALCULATED DATA 02088 ET Fig.11 Power factor of en input current sensing buck converter 4. CONCLUSIONS The power factor of an AC-DC buck converter is analyzed in the discontinuous and continuous in~ ductor current modes. The folloving summarizes in- portant result 1075(1) In order to operate the converter in the discontinuous mode, the duty ratio D must be snaller than the ratio of input voltage to output voltage a (= V/V.) The pover factor in the is detersined only by @ when a <0.6. In the discontinuous node, the naxinun active pover can be obtained at a@¥0.68 and it decreases as a approaches zero and 1. In the continuous mode, a larger active pover can be obtained, but the power factor is lover than in the discontinuous mode for constant duty ratio operation. ‘The pover factor in the continuous mode can be improved to be the sane as in the discon- tinuous node by input current control. Theoretical predictions are verified by ex- por inentat ion. @ discontinuous mode and it is over 0.9 @ w @ (6) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank Dr. Katsuichi YOTSUOTO for his many valuable comments and Hr. Yoji MASUDA for his help with the measurenents, 1076 a ie) (3) ul (5) REFERENCES $.B,Dewan, “Optimun Input and Output Filter for a Single-Phase Rectifier Pover Supply, 18EB ‘Trans. Ind. Appl, vol. TAIT, no.3, pp. 282-288, 1981. 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