Accepted Manuscript

A novel quadratic Boost converter with low current and voltage stress on power
switch for fuel-cell system applications

Faqiang Wang

PII: S0960-1481(17)30787-5

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.08.032

Reference: RENE 9130

To appear in: Renewable Energy

Received Date: 21 May 2017

Revised Date: 24 July 2017

Accepted Date: 14 August 2017

Please cite this article as: Faqiang Wang, A novel quadratic Boost converter with low current and
voltage stress on power switch for fuel-cell system applications, Renewable Energy (2017), doi:
10.1016/j.renene.2017.08.032

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to
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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 A novel quadratic Boost converter with low current

2 and voltage stress on power switch for fuel-cell
3 system applications
4 Faqiang Wang
5 (State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical
6 Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China)
7 Abstract
8 This paper presents a novel quadratic Boost converter with good features: no abruptly changing
9 on capacitors’ voltage and inductors’ current in the whole switching cycle which can assure no
10 instantaneous overcurrent or overvoltage on storage elements, non-pulsating input current that can
11 make the input filter design easier, low current and voltage stress on power switch. The basic
12 operating principles and the mathematical model of this novel quadratic Boost converter are
13 presented. The steady state and the small signal dynamical behaviors are analyzed and the
14 comparisons among other quadratic Boost converters are described and concluded. Finally, the
15 Pspice simulations and the corresponding circuit experiments are presented for confirmation.
16
17 Keywords: novel quadratic Boost converter, low current and voltage stress on power switch.

18 1. Introduction

19 As well known, the availability of fossil fuel is limited. With the society developing, the energy
20 demand is increasing seriously and the fossil fuel is diminishing quickly, the renewable energy,
21 including photovoltaic (PV) [1], fuel-cell [2] and wind energy [3], attracts more and more power
22 industries and researchers’ attention to study for relieving this condition. For the fuel-cell system
23 [4], it typically consists of fuel-cell stacks, back-up batteries, DC-DC high step-up converter, and
24 DC-AC inverter connected with the loads or grid. As general, the output voltage of the fuel-cell
25 stacks is rated as 22─48V and the input voltage of the DC-AC inverter is rated as (200-V) [4]. In
26 other words, the input and output voltage of the DC-DC high step-up converter are (22-48V) and
27 (200-V), respectively. Without loss of generality, the input and output voltage of the DC-DC high
28 step-up converter are chosen as 24V and 200V, respectively, which means that its voltage
29 conversion ratio should be equal to 8.3333. When the traditional Boost converter is applied to
30 realize this application, it is found that its duty cycle must be equal to 0.88 which is a little difficult

Corresponding author at State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical
Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China. Tel.: +86 029 82668630Ext218. E-mail address:
faqwang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 to obtain in practical situation for the limitation of semiconductors. Moreover, even if this situation
2 is satisfied, the high switching voltage stress with reverse recovery issues and the low efficiency of
3 the traditional Boost converter limit its application [5]. Of course, the traditional Sepic converter
4 can also be used to boost the low input voltage to the high output voltage. However, its duty cycle
5 being 0.8928 must be used for this fuel-cell system application [6]. Hence, these two traditional
6 DC-DC converters have the same drawbacks.
7 In order to overcome the drawback of the traditional Boost converter and other step-up converter
8 with high voltage conversion ratio by using large duty cycle, a lot of DC-DC step-up converters
9 with high voltage conversion ratio by using the suitable duty cycle have been proposed. As general,
10 these converters can be classified into two types: isolated step-up converter and non-isolated step-
11 up converter. For the DC-DC isolated step-up converter, the inevitable transformer is inserted into
12 the converter for obtaining the high voltage conversion ratio [7]. However, the transformer causes
13 switch voltage overshoot and EMI problems that lead to low efficiency and huge volume [8]. For
14 the DC-DC non-isolated step-up converter, it only consists of the power switches, diodes, capacitors
15 and inductors. In recent decades, many DC-DC non-isolated step-up converters with high voltage
16 conversion ratio have been proposed [9-13]. For example, for obtaining the voltage conversion ratio
17 being 2/(1-D) where D is the steady state of duty cycle, the voltage-boosting converters with hybrid
18 energy pumping was proposed by Hwu and Tu [9], and the sixth-order step-up converter integrated
19 the traditional Boost converter with self-lift Sepic converter was proposed by Al-Saffar etal [10].
20 By using the bootstrap capacitors and Boost inductors, Hwu and Tu also proposed the non-isolated
21 step-up converters with the voltage conversion ratio being (3+D)/(1-D) and (3-D)/(1-D) [11]. Chien
22 etal proposed the interleaved step-up converter with the voltage conversion ratio being 3/(1-D) [12].
23 By using the voltage-lift technique, Luo and Ye proposed the non-isolated step-up converter with
24 the voltage conversion ratio being ((2-D)/(1-D))N [13]. However, the abruptly changing on the
25 voltage across the capacitor of all the above DC-DC non-isolated step-up converters results them in
26 limiting in practical application to some extent.
27 Also, the switched capacitor or the switched inductor has been inserted into the existed DC-DC
28 converter to obtain the high voltage conversion, such as hybrid boost converter with the voltage
29 conversion ratio being (1+D)/(1-D) in [14], the switched-capacitor-based active network converter
30 with the voltage conversion ratio being (3+D)/(1-D) in [15], the PWM Z-source DC-DC converter
31 with the voltage conversion ratio being (1-D)/(1-2D) in [16]. However, the output voltages of these
32 converters are floating. In [17], the quadratic Boost converter with low buffer capacitor stress and
33 the voltage conversion ratio being 1/(1-D)2 was proposed by Ye and Cheng. Unfortunately, the
34 input current of this quadratic Boost converter is pulsating so that it is necessary and difficult to
35 design the input filter for filtering its harmonics. Hence, to overcome the above drawback, a novel
36 quadratic Boost converter is proposed in this paper. The proposed quadratic Boost converter has
37 some good advantages including no abruptly changing on capacitors’ voltage and inductors’ current

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 in the whole switching period which can assure no instantaneous overcurrent or overvoltage on
2 storage elements, non-pulsating input current that can make the input filter design easier, low
3 current and voltage stress on power switch.
4 This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the basic operation principle of the proposed
5 quadratic Boost converter in continuous conduction mode (CCM) is described. The steady state and
6 small signal dynamical behaviors is analyzed in section 3. In section 4, the design procedure for the
7 proposed quadratic Boost converter is presented, and some Pspice simulations are given for
8 confirmation preliminary. In section 5, the comparisons among the traditional quadratic Boost
9 converter [18], the modified quadratic Boost converter [17] and the proposed quadratic Boost
10 converter are presented for describing the good features of the proposed quadratic Boost converter.
11 The hardware circuit is designed and some experimental results are presented for validation in
12 section 6. Finally, some concluding remarks and comments are given in section 7.

13 2. Proposed converter’ structure and its operating principles

14 The proposed quadratic Boost converter is shown in Fig.1. This converter contains two power
15 switches (Q1 and Q2), one energy-transferring capacitor C1, one output capacitor C2, two inductors
16 (L1 and L2), two power diodes (D1 and D2), and one resistive load R. Note that, here, the currents
17 through the inductor L1 and L2 are denoted by iL1 and iL2, respectively. The voltage across the
18 capacitors C1 and C2 are defined as vC1 and v0, respectively. Two power switches (Q1 and Q2) are
19 controlled synchronously and driven by the same PWM signal vd with the period being T and the
20 duty cycle being d. The equivalent circuits for the possible operation modes for the proposed
21 quadratic Boost converter in continuous conduction mode (CCM) operation are shown in Fig.2.
22 Mode 1: In Fig.2(a), within (NT, NT+dT), the power switches Q1 and Q2 are turned on for the
23 high level PWM signal vd, and the diodes D1 and D2 are not conducted for the inverse biased
24 voltage. Thus, the inductor L1 is magnetized so that its current increases. The output capacitor C2 is
25 discharged and delivered the energy to the load R. The inductor L2 and the energy-transferring
26 capacitor C1 are in parallel with each other, and both of them deliver their energy to the inductor L1
27 so that both the current through the inductor L2 and the voltage across the energy-transferring
28 capacitor C1 decrease. The associated differential equations for mode 1 are derived as follows

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 diL1 vin  vC1

 dt  L
 1

 diL 2 vC1
 dt   L
 2
1  (1)
 dvC1  iL 2  iL1
 dt C1

 dv0   v0
 dt RC2

iL1 L1 D1
iL 2 +
Q1
L2
vC1
vin  - + C2 R v0

C1
Q2
D2
2
-
3 Fig.1. Proposed quadratic Boost converter
iL1 L1
iL 2 +
L2
v
vin  - C1 + C2 R v0

C1

4
-
5 (a)
iL1 L1
iL 2 +
L2
v
vin  - C1 + C2 R v0

C1

6
-
7 (b)
8 Fig.2. Operation modes for the proposed quadratic Boost converter in CCM operation (a) mode 1, (b) mode 2.

9 Mode 2: In Fig.2(b), within (NT+dT, NT+T), the power switches Q1 and Q2 are turned off for the
10 low level PWM signal vd. The diodes D1 and D2 are conducted for its forward biased voltage. Thus,
11 the inductor L1 is demagnetized and delivers energy to the inductor L2, the energy-transferring
12 capacitor C1 and the output load R so that the inductor current iL1 decreases while the inductor
13 current iL2 and the capacitor voltage vC1 increase. Its model is.

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 diL1 vin  v0
 dt  L
 1

 diL 2 v0  vC1
 dt  L
 2
1  (2)
 dvC1  iL 2
 dt C1

 dv0  iL1  iL 2  v0
 dt C2 RC2

2 3. Analysis of the proposed converter

3 In order to carry out theoretical analysis conveniently, the components in the proposed quadratic
4 Boost converter are assumed as ideal and some symbols are defined. x is the averaged value of x
5 which is the circuit variable such as iL1, iL2, vC1, v0, vin and d. X and x̂ are defined as its DC and
6 small ac values, respectively. Also, the following equation is assumed
7  x  X  xˆ with xˆ  X (3)

8 From the averaging method [19], the averaged model for the proposed quadratic Boost converter
9 in CCM operation can be directly derived as follows

 d iL1   vC1   vin   v0 

 dt  L d  L  L (1  d )
 1 1 1

 d iL 2   v0   vC1 
 dt  L (1  d )  L
 2 2
10  (4)
 d  vC1   iL 2   iL1  d
 dt C1 C1

 d  v0   ( iL1   iL 2  )(1  d )  1  v 
 dt C2 RC2
0

11 3.1 Steady state analysis

12 By taking (3) into (4) and then separating the DC values from (4), the steady state equations for
13 the proposed quadratic Boost converter can be derived. Its result is

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VC1 Vin V0
L D   (1  D)  0
L1 L1
 1

 V0 VC1
 L (1  D)  L  0
 2 2
1  (5)
 I L 2  I L1 D  0
 C1 C1

( I L1  I L 2 )(1  D)  1 V  0
 C2 RC2
0

2 From (5), the steady state for the inductor currents (IL1 and IL2) and the capacitor voltages (VC1
3 and V0) can be calculated. By assuming that the inductor current iL1 (iL2) is increasing (decreasing)
4 linearly within (NT, NT+dT) and decreasing (increasing) within (NT+dT, NT+T) and using (1) and
5 (5), the current ripples ΔiL1 and ΔiL2 can be derived. Also, by considering that the capacitor voltage
6 vC1 and v0 are decreasing linearly within (NT, NT+dT) and increasing within (NT+dT, NT+T) and
7 using (1) and (5), the voltage ripples ΔvC1 and Δv0 can also be derived. Accordingly, the current
8 ripple ratios (ΔiL1/IL1 and ΔiL2/IL2) and the voltage ripple ratios (ΔvC1/VC1 and Δv0/V0) which are
9 useful for design the storage elements to satisfy the requirements can also be obtained. All the
10 above derivations are shown in Table 1. From Table 1, it is clear that the voltage conversion ratio M
11 is
1
12 M (6)
(1  D) 2

13 For the input voltage being 24V and the output voltage being 200V in fuel-cell applications, the
14 voltage conversion ratio M should be 200/24=8.3333 so that the required duty cycle is D=0.6536
15 which is easy to generate for the proposed quadratic Boost converter.
16 Table 1
17 DC values, ripples and ripple ratios for the inductor currents and the capacitor voltages

Items DC values Ripples ripple ratios

Vin (2  D) DTVin iL1 (2  D) R(1  D)3 DT
L1 I L1  iL1   L1  
R(1  D) 4 (1  D) L1 I L1 L1
DVin DTVin iL 2 TR(1  D)3
L2 IL2  iL 2  L2  
R(1  D) 4 (1  D) L2 IL2 L2
Vin DTVin vC1 DT
C1 VC1  vC1  C1  
1 D RC1 (1  D)3 VC1 RC1 (1  D) 2
Vin DTVin v0 DT
C2 V0  v0  C 2  
(1  D) 2 RC2 (1  D) 2 V0 RC2
18
19 Moreover, from Table 1 and Fig. 1, the current and voltage stress on the power switches and
20 diodes of the proposed quadratic Boost converter which are useful for selecting their types can be

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1 derived and shown in Table 2.

2 Table 2
3 Current and voltage stress on power switches and diodes

Items Current stress Voltage stress

DVin Vin
Power switch Q1 I Q1  VQ1 
R(1  D)3 (1  D) 2
DVin Vin
Power switch Q2 I Q2  VQ2 
R(1  D) 4 1 D
Vin (2  D)Vin
Diode D1 I D1  VD1 
R(1  D) 2 (1  D) 2
DVin Vin
Diode D2 I D2  VD2 
R(1  D)3 1 D

4 3.2 Small signal model

5 By taking (3) into (4) and then separating the small signal ac values from (4), the small ac
6 equations for the proposed quadratic Boost converter can be derived. Its result is
 diˆL1 VC1dˆ vˆC1 D vˆin vˆ0 V
     (1  D)  0 dˆ
 dt L1 L1 L1 L1 L1
 diˆ vˆ V vˆ
 L 2  0 (1  D)  0 dˆ  C1
 dt L2 L2 L2
7  (7)
 dvˆC1  iˆL 2  I L1 dˆ  iˆL1 D
 dt C1 C1 C1

 dvˆ0 iˆ  iˆ I I 1
  ( L1 L 2 )(1  D)  L1 L 2 dˆ  vˆ0
 dt C2 C2 RC2
8 And then, by applying Laplace transform on (7), the input-to-output transfer function, the
9 control-to-output transfer function, the input-to-inductor current transfer function and the control-
10 to-inductor current transfer function for the proposed quadratic Boost converter in CCM which are
11 useful for controller design can be obtained by using their respective definition. Their results are
 vˆ0 ( s )
Gvv ( s )   [0, 0, 0,1]( sI  A) 1 B1
 vˆin ( s ) dˆ ( s ) 0

G ( s )  vˆ0 ( s )  [0, 0, 0,1]( sI  A) 1 B 2
 vd ˆ
d ( s ) vˆin ( s ) 0

12  (8)
G ( s )  iˆL1 ( s )  [1, 0, 0, 0]( sI  A) 1 B1
 iv vˆin ( s ) dˆ ( s ) 0

 ˆ
Gid ( s )  iL1 ( s )  [1, 0, 0, 0]( sI  A) 1 B 2
 ˆ
d ( s ) vˆin ( s ) 0

13 where A=[0, 0, D/L1, -(1-D)/L1; 0, 0, -1/L2, (1-D)/L2; -D/C1, 1/C1, 0, 0; (1-D)/C2, -(1-D)/C2, 0, -

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 1/R/C2], B1=[1/L1; 0; 0; 0], B2=[(VC1+V0)/L1; -V0/L2; -IL1/C1; -(IL1-IL2)/C2].

2 3.3 Boundary between CCM and DCM

3 In general, in order to reduce the harmonic in the DC-DC converter, it is better to ensure the DC-
4 DC converter operate in CCM operation, not discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operation.
5 Hence, it is necessary to present the boundary between CCM and DCM of the proposed quadratic
6 Boost converter. For the proposed quadratic Boost converter operating in CCM operation, both the
7 inductor currents iL1 and iL2 should be above zero within a whole switching period. Thus, both the
8 DC values of these two inductor currents should be larger than half of their respective ripples.
9 Accordingly, the two inductors should be satisfied the following conditions.

(2  D)(1  D)3 RDT

10 L1  (9)
2

(1  D)3 RT
11 L2  (10)
2

12 4. Design procedure and Pspice simulations

13 In this section, the design procedure for the proposed quadratic Boost converter is presented and
14 some Pspice simulations are given for verification preliminary.

15 4.1 Design procedure

16 The given specifications are shown in Table 3. Thus, the voltage conversion ratio M should be
17 8.3333. Assuming that the efficiency of the proposed quadratic Boost converter is 100%, the values
18 of the parameters for the proposed quadratic Boost converter can be calculated.
19 Table 3
20 The specifications for the proposed quadratic Boost converter

Items Values
Input voltage vin 24V
Output voltage V0 200V
Output power P0 40W
Resistive load R 1000Ω
Switching frequency f 50kHz
ρL1 and ρL2 <30%
ρC1 <3%
ρC2 <0.05%

21 The required duty cycle can be calculated from (6) and its result is

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 V
1 D  1  1  in  0.6536 (11)
M V0

2 From Table 1 and Table 3, the values of the inductor L1 and L2 should be satisfied the following
3 inequation

(2  D) R(1  D)3 DT
4 L1   2.4mH (12)
0.3

TR(1  D)3
5 L2   2.8mH (13)
0.3
6 Note that, the above two inequations are also satisfied (9) and (10), respectively.
7 Also, the values of the energy-transferring capacitor C1 and the output capacitor C2 should meet
8 the following condition
DT
9 C1   3.632μF (14)
0.03R(1  D) 2
DT
10 C2   26.14μF (15)
0.0005 R
11 Here, the values of storage elements for the proposed quadratic Boost converter are choosing as
12 L1=2.76mH with rL1=160mΩ, L2=2.97mH with rL2=145mΩ, C1=4.7μF with rC1=10mΩ and
13 C2=40μF with rC2=6mΩ. From the Table 2 and Table 3, the voltage and current stress for each
14 semiconductor can also be calculated, and then their type can be selected. Here, PowerMESHTM
15 MOSFET IRFP460 which is rated for 20A/500Vis selected for power switches Q1 and Q2 and
16 switchmodeTM power rectifiers MUR1560 rated for 15A/600V is selected for diodes D1 and D2.

17 4.2 Pspice simulations

18 Pspice, a software package that is widely applied to analyzing power electronic systems in the
19 time-domain fields [20], is used as simulation engine for the proposed quadratic Boost converter.
20 Firstly, based on the designed parameters and semiconductors selected in subsection 5.1 and
21 Cadence 16.6 software, the Pspice simulation model for the proposed quadratic Boost converter in
22 open loop control is constructed and the corresponding simulations results are shown in Table 4. In
23 addition, the corresponding theoretical calculations are also shown in Table 4. Note that, for the
24 theoretical calculations about the steady state such as IL1, IL2, VC1, V0, ρL1, ρL2, ρC1, ρC2 are calculated
25 under the ideal conditions. However, for the Pspice simulations, all the results are obtained from the
26 non-ideal conditions shown in subsection 4.1.
27 Table 4
28 Comparisons between the theoretical calculations and Pspice simulations

IL1/A IL2/A VC1/V V0/V ρL1 ρL2 ρC1 ρC2

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Calculations 1.6669 1.0895 69.284 200.000 26.51% 27.99% 2.32% 0.033%

Simulations 1.7952 1.1949 67.150 198.727 23.65% 24.58% 2.59% 0.033%

1 From Table 4, it is found that there is difference between the results from theoretical calculations
2 and Pspice simulations. For example, the output voltage V0 from the Pspice simulation is not up to
3 200V for the voltage drop on the semiconductors and ESR of passive elements. In addition, all the
4 data in Table 4 also describe that the designed parameters satisfy the requirements in Table 3. And,
5 the efficiency of the proposed quadratic Boost converter is 91.66% from Pspice simulation. Note
6 that, the measured efficiency of the proposed quadratic Boost converter can be improved by
7 utilizing better components.
8 Secondly, based on the open-loop transfer functions (Gvd(s), Gvv(s), Giv(s) and Gid(s)) of the
9 proposed quadratic Boost converter in subsection 3.2 and the given circuit parameters in subsection
10 4.1, the average current mode control including the voltage compensator, the current compensator
11 and the PWM generator shown in Fig.3 can be designed for the proposed quadratic Boost converter
12 to obtain good performance. It is noted that the current iL is transformed into the voltage with the
13 same value by using the current transducer and the output voltage of the current compensator is
14 defined as vvi. The circuit parameters for the average current mode control are: Rvi=1000kΩ,
15 Rvd=20kΩ, Rvf=200kΩ, Cvf=10nF, Ri=20kΩ, Rp=20kΩ, Cp=10nF, Ci=100pF, Vref=3.922V, and the
16 ramp signal Vramp is given as follows
t
17 Vramp  VL  (VU  VL )( mod 1) (16)
T
18 where VL=0V and VU=10V are the low and high threshold of the ramp signal Vramp, respectively.
19 Thus, the PWM signal vd can be generated by comparing the voltage vvi with the ramp signal Vramp.
20 The Pspice simulation results are shown in Fig.4. Fig.4(a) shows the time-domain waveforms for
21 the inductor currents iL1 and iL2 and the PWM signal vd of the average current mode controlled
22 proposed quadratic Boost converter. Its time-domain waveforms for the voltages v0 and vC1 and the
23 PWM signal vd are shown in Fig.4(b). The voltages across diode D2 and power switches Q2, and the
24 PWM signal vd are shown in Fig.4(c). It is obvious that the proposed quadratic Boost converter
25 operates in CCM operation and its output voltage is 200V.
26 The Pspice simulation results about the closed-loop step response of the output voltage v0 for the
27 average current mode controlled proposed quadratic Boost converter under a step change in the load
28 R being 1400Ω—1050Ω—1400Ω and the input voltage vin being 24V—26.4V—24V are captured
29 and shown in Fig. 5(a) and Fig.5(b), respectively. It can be observed that the system has good
30 performance.

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Ci Ri iL1 v0
vd
Cp Rp Cvf Rvf Rvi

vvi - vvf
+ + -
+
COM - AM2 AM1 Rvd
Vramp vref

1
2 Fig.3 Circuit schematic for the average current mode controller
3 300

2 200
/A

v /V
L1

0
1 100
i

0 0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969 0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
t/s t/s
3 100

2
/V
/A

50
C1
L2

1
v
i

0 0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969 0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
30 t/s
30 t/s

20 20
v /V

v /V
d

10
d

10
0 0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969 0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
3 t/s t/s
4 (a) (b)
100
/V

50
D2
v

0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
t/s
100
/V

50
Q2
v

0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
30 t/s

20
v /V
d

10

0
0.29919 0.29929 0.29939 0.29949 0.29959 0.29969
5 t/s

6 (c)
7 Fig.4. Pspice simulation results. (a) iL1, iL2 and vd, (b) v0, vC1 and vd, (c) VD2, VQ2 and vd.

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204 204

202 202
v /V

v /V
200 200
0

0
198 198

196 196
0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36
t/s t/s

1800 28
1600 26.4V
1400 1400 26
1400

v /V
R/

24V

in
1200 24V
1050 24
1000
800 22
0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36
t/s t/s
1
2 (a) (b)
3 Fig.5. Closed-loop step responses for the proposed quadratic Boost converter. (a) Change in R, (b) Change in vin.

4 5. Comparisons among quadratic Boost converters

5 Up to now, there are two quadratic Boost converters in the open literatures: the traditional
6 quadratic Boost converter (TQBC) in [18] and the modified quadratic Boost converter (MQBC) in
7 [17]. Their respective circuit diagrams are shown in Fig.6(a) and Fig.6(b).
iL1 L1 D2 D1 iL 2 L2 D1
+ +
+v
D3 C1 D2
iL 2 L2 -i C1 L D3
vin  C2 R v0 L1 1
C2 R v0

+v Q vin  Q2
C1 2 
- C1
8
- -
9 (a) (b)
10 Fig.6. Circuit schematics for TQBC and MQBC (a) TQBC, (b) MQBC.
11 From Fig.1 and Fig.6, one can see that the input current of TQBC and the proposed quadratic
12 Boost converter (PQBC) are non-pulsating since their input current equals their respective inductor
13 current iL1 while MQBC’s input current is pulsating. Hence, it is necessary and difficult to design
14 the input filter for filtering the harmonics in MQBC. Under the same conditions, the voltage VQ2 for
15 these three converters with different D are calculated and shown in Fig.7(a) and the current IQ2 for
16 them with different load R are calculated and shown in Fig.7(b). Obviously, the PQBC possesses
17 the minimum voltage and current stress on power switch Q2. Under the same conditions in
18 subsection 4.1, the power loss of power switch Q2 (PQ2) and efficiency of these three converters
19 under different R are measured in Pspice software and shown in Fig.8(a) and Fig.8(b), respectively.
20 It is obvious that the PQBC has the lowest power loss of power switch Q2 and possesses the largest
21 efficiency among these three converters so that it is a good candidate for the fuel-cell system
22 applications. Here, the specific comparisons among these three converters are concluded in Table 5.

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800 4
TQBC TQBC
MQBC MQBC
700 PQBC 3.5 PQBC

600
3

500
2.5
/V

/A
400
Q2

Q2
V

I
300

1.5
200

100 1

0 0.5
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
D R/
1
2 (a) (b)
3 Fig.7. Comparisons about VQ2 and IQ2 among TQBC, MQBC and PQBC (a) VQ2─D, (b) IQ2─R.

10 98
TQBC TQBC
MQBC MQBC
9 96
PQBC PQBC
8
94
7
92
Efficiency (%)

6
/ W

90
Q2

5
P

88
4
86
3

2 84

1 82
400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
R/ R/
4
5 (a) (b)
6 Fig.8 Comparisons about PQ2 and efficiency among TQBC, MQBC and PQBC. (a) PQ2─R, (b) Efficiency─R
7 Table 5
8 Comparisons among TQBC, MQBC and PQBC

Items TQBC MQBC PQBC

Vin Vin Vin
V0
(1  D) 2 (1  D) 2 (1  D) 2
Vin DVin Vin
VC1
1 D 1 D 1 D
1 1 1
M
(1  D) 2 (1  D) 2 (1  D) 2
Vin Vin Vin
IL1
R(1  D) 4 R(1  D) 4 R(1  D) 4
Vin Vin DVin
IL2
R(1  D)3 R(1  D)3 R(1  D) 4

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Vin
Q1
Vin Vin (1  D) 2
VQ
(1  D) 2 (1  D) 2 Vin
Q2
1 D
DVin
Q1 R(1  D)3
(2  D) DVin (2  D) DVin
IQ
R(1  D) 4 R(1  D) 4 DVin
Q2 R(1  D) 4
Vin Vin
D1 (1  D) 2 D1 (1  D) 2 (2  D)Vin
D1 (1  D) 2
DVin Vin
VD D2 (1  D) 2 D2
1 D
Vin
Vin DVin D2
D3 D3 1 D
1 D (1  D) 2
Vin Vin
D1 R(1  D) 2 D1 R(1  D) 2 Vin
D1 R(1  D) 2
DVin Vin
ID D2 D2
R(1  D) 4 R(1  D)3
DVin
Vin DVin D2 R(1  D)3
D3 R(1  D)3 D3 R(1  D) 4
Number of
2 2 2
inductors
Number of
2 2 2
capacitors
Number of
1 1 2
switches
Number of
3 3 2
diodes

1 6. Circuit experiments

2 Based on the selected components in section 4, the hardware circuit for the average current mode
3 controlled the proposed quadratic Boost converter is constructed. Note that, in the experiment, the
4 drive circuit is realized by the photocoupler TLP250H. The inductor current iL1 is transformed into
5 the voltage with the same value by using the current transducer LA55-P. The digital oscilloscope
6 GDS 3254 is applied to capture the measured time-domain waveforms. Under the given circuit
7 parameters in section 4, the corresponding experimental results are shown in Fig.9. Comparing
8 Fig.9 with Fig.4, it can be observed that the circuit experiments are in good agreement with the
9 Pspice simulations. Here, in order to see the experimental results clearly, the closed-up view of
10 Fig.9 is shown in Fig.10. From Fig.10, the duty ratio of the experimental set-up can be measured
11 and its result is about 0.656.

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1
2 (a) (b)

3
4 (c)
5 Fig.9. Experimental results (Time: 50μs/div). (a) iL1 (Top: 2.5A/div), iL2 (Middle: 2.5A/div) and vd (Bottom:
6 10V/div), (b) v0 (Top: 100V/div), vC1 (Middle: 50V/div) and vd (Bottom: 10V/div), (c) VD2 (Top: 50V/div), VQ2
7 (Middle: 50V/div), and vd (Bottom: 10V/div).

8
9 (a) (b)

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1
2 (c)
3 Fig.10. Closed-up view of the experimental results (Time: 5μs/div). (a) iL1 (Top: 2.5A/div), iL2 (Middle: 2.5A/div)
4 and vd (Bottom: 10V/div), (b) v0 (Top: 100V/div), vC1 (Middle: 50V/div) and vd (Bottom: 10V/div), (c) VD2 (Top:
5 50V/div), VQ2 (Middle: 50V/div), and vd (Bottom: 10V/div).

6 The measured efficiency of the experimental set-up of the average current mode controlled the
7 proposed quadratic Boost converter is 85.97% which is smaller than the result from the Pspice
8 simulations since some parasitic parameters such as the resistance, distributed capacitance and
9 distributed inductance of lines, etc, are not considered in the Pspice simulations while they really
10 exist in the experiments. These parasitic parameters interacting with other system’s circuit
11 parameters will make the waveforms of the system’s voltages and currents worse, especially for the
12 PWM signal vd, so that the system’s power loss is increased in the experiments.

13 7. Conclusions

14 For fuel cell applications, as well known, it needs the high step-up converter with high voltage
15 conversion ratio and high efficiency. In this study, the novel quadratic Boost converter with its
16 voltage conversion ratio being 1/(1-D)2 is proposed. The steady state and small signal model are
17 derived and analyzed. Compared with the traditional quadratic Boost converter and the modified
18 quadratic Boost converter, the proposed quadratic Boost converter has lowest voltage and current
19 stress on the power switch Q2 and possesses the highest efficiency. Additionally, the proposed
20 quadratic Boost converter also has no abruptly changing on capacitors’ voltage and inductors’
21 current in the whole switching cycle which can assure no instantaneous overcurrent or overvoltage
22 on storage elements and non-pulsating input current that can make the input filter design easier.
23 Therefore, the proposed quadratic Boost converter is a good candidate for the fuel-cell system
24 applications.

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1 Acknowledgements

2 This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos.
3 51377124 and 51521065), a Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation
4 of PR China (Grant no. 201337), the New Star of Youth Science and Technology of Shaanxi
5 Province (Grant no. 2016KJXX-40).

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The research highlights of the paper “A novel quadratic Boost converter with low
current and voltage stress on power switch for fuel-cell system applications” can be
concluded as follows three points.
(1) A novel quadratic Boost converter with good features: no abruptly changing on
capacitors’ voltage and inductors’ current in the whole switching cycle which can assure
no instantaneous overcurrent or overvoltage on storage elements, non-pulsating input
current that can make the input filter design easier, low current and voltage stress on
power switch, is proposed.
(2) The comparisons among the traditional quadratic Boost converters, the modified
quadratic Boost converters and the proposed quadratic Boost converters are presented
and show that the proposed quadratic Boost converter has lowest voltage and current
stress on the power switch Q2 and possesses the highest efficiency in these three
converters.
(3) The theoretical analysis, PSpice simulations and circuit experiments are
presented and show that the proposed quadratic Boost converter is a good candidate for
the fuel-cell system applications.