DC-DC converters: Part 1

Ladies and gentlemen.

In this lecture, we focus on DC to DC type of power electronic converters that facilitate the
conversion from one DC voltage level to another DC level.

In particular, we will focus on the buck or step down converter.

The main learning objectives will fall under three questions: First, how do DC to DC
converters work?

Second, what are the operating states of a buck converter?

Third, what is the ratio between the input voltage and output voltage of a DC to DC buck
converter?

The DC to DC converter is the responsible for stepping up or down the input voltage V_in to
the desired level of voltage at the output V_o.

The input DC source can be for instance a DC link called high voltage dc bus as you will see
on next slide.

The output can be connected to a battery, for example.

Based on the input to output voltage ratio, we recognize the buck (or step down) converter
where the output voltage is lower than the input voltage.

The other converter is stepping up the voltage and is called the boost converter.

In this lecture, we are going to have a look at one of the simplest forms of the DC voltage
conversion, that is a buck converter or the step-down chopper.

This figure shows the typical layout of power electronics components in a BEV.

As you can see from the picture that the battery is connected to the high voltage bus via a
bidirectional DC/DC converter.

Let’s zoom in this part.

When the power transferred from the high voltage bus to the battery, which charges the
battery through the regenerative-braking.

The voltage on the high voltage bus is stepped down to a lower voltage level for the battery,
therefore this battery converter is working in the buck mode.

At the lower right corner of the page, you can see the simplified diagram of the buck
converter.
At its left side is the higher voltage the VHV bus, and the lower battery voltage Vbatt is at its
right side.

In this case, the higher voltage at the left side is the input voltage Vin and the lower voltage
at the right side is the output voltage Vout.

In the figure, we show the circuit diagram of a simplified buck converter which includes only
a switch, a DIODE, and an inductor.

The inductor is the main responsible for smoothing out the output current.

In the figure we can see the output voltage of the converter versus time.

We define T_on as the on-time of the switch whereas T is the total time of a period.

If the switch is on, then the output voltage is equal to the input voltage.

And, if the switch is off, then the output voltage is equal to zero.

The output voltage is changing between two values, V_in and zero and thus has a large
ripple.

As we can see, in this figure, the average output voltage V_o_av in the dotted blue line
depends on the ratio of on-time of the switch and the total period.

The diode is called freewheeling diode which takes over the load current in the interval
when the switch is off.

Based on the simple diagram, in general case, if we add a capacitor in parallel then the
capacitor will help reduce the voltage ripple, from the black waveform to the one shown in
blue, as seen in the figure.

As we increase the value of the capacitor, the amount of the voltage ripple is further
reduced.

In the previous slides, we mentioned that the capacitor helps reduce the output voltage
ripple.

Indeed the capacitor suppresses the rate of change of the output voltage which is reflected
as the current of the capacitor.

This is mainly because the capacitor can maintain the voltage to some extent by absorbing
or releasing its stored energy E_c which depends on the capacitance and the square of the
DC voltage across the capacitor.

While the capacitor is used in parallel to the load maintain the level of DC voltage, an
inductor can be employed in series to maintain the level of DC current.
The inductor is smoothing out the rate of change of current, that is reflected as the voltage
across the inductor.

Similarly, the inductor is able to release or absorb its stored energy, which depends on the
inductance and the square of the current passing through the inductor.

Let us now apply the buck converter on charging the battery through the regenerative-
braking.

A battery is connect to the output and the voltage is the battery output voltage Vo.

We can consider two states of operation for the buck converter.

In the first operating state, the input source is connected to the output where it stores some
energy in the inductor and charges the battery.

Note that the voltage of the inductor V_L is positive since the input voltage is larger than the
output battery voltage.

During the second state, the switch turns off, and accordingly the input is disconnected from
the inductor.

During this state, the energy stored in the inductor is fed to the output.

Lets’ now see how the current of the inductor changes during these two operating states, as
the inductor current is shown in the figure.

During the first state, the current of the inductor increases where the current derivative
depends on the difference of the input and output battery voltage.

During the second operating state, the voltage across the inductor is equal to minus of the
output voltage.

During this state, the inductor releases the stored energy to the battery (which has some
internal resistance).

The current derivative only depends on the output voltage.

Let’s see the voltage over the inductor during both on and off states of the switch.

During one switching cycle in steady state, it is important to note that the average inductor
voltage must be equal to zero.

This means that the green area during on-period is equal to the red area during the off time
and as a result, the voltage of the inductor at the beginning and the end of each cycle will
remain the same.

The graph shows the time intervals T_on and T_off during which a switch turns on and turns
off over a complete switching cycle, respectively.
The duty cycle is defined as the ratio of ON time period divided by the complete switching
cycle.

The value of the duty cycle ranges from zero to one.

As we introduced before, the step-down or the-so called buck converters are widely used to
reduce the level of input voltage.

The output voltage of a buck converter is the product of the input voltage and the duty
cycle.

In the application of the battery converter works in buck mode, the output voltage to the
battery Vbatt is the product of the input voltage VHV-bus and the duty cycle.

Finally, there are different ways to chop or step down the DC voltage.

First, is the pulse width modulation method or the PWM method where the total time
period of the signal T is fixed, and then the on-time T_on of the switch is changed.

This method is effective when the fundamental switching frequency has to be constant.

In the frequency modulation method, unlike the PWM, the on-time of the switch T_on
remains constant and the total period T changes.

This method is used when the variable switching frequency is needed.

To wrap up, in this video we focused on one of the most common DC to DC power
converters, namely the buck or step-down converter.

We evaluated two operating states of the converter during on time and off time of the
switch.

We introduced the concept duty cycle and saw how the output of the buck converter is
simply the product of input voltage and the duty cycle.