Dual Functioning Converter Utilizing Flyback

Struture Used in Solar Energy Generation

Hossein Kazemi Kargar, Zeinab Sudi, Amin Hajihosseinlu
Department of Electrical Engineering
Shahid Beheshti University
Tehran, Iran
h_kazemi@sbu.ac.ir, keipour@ieee.org, hajihosseinlu@yahoo.com


AbstractIn some applications it is needed to convert a variable
DC voltage to both AC and DC desirable voltages based on
situation. In this paper a new converter has been proposed. This
converter which has ability to generate both ac and dc output
voltage is taken from the conventional Flyback converter.
Flyback change a dc input voltage to a higher or lower level.
Using a simple switching method this dc-dc converter
wonderfully produces an ac output voltage so much close to an
ideal sinusoidal voltage. Applying sinusoidal pulse width
modulation (SPWM) method to a unidirectional switch makes
output voltage to be sinusoidal. Inductors in transformer and the
output capacitor are utilized to filter transferring energy.
Changing the switching method from sinusoidal PWM to linear
PWM simply let user to get either ac or dc output voltage. All of
these have been proved successfully in the simulation results.
Keywordsinverter; minimizing component; single switch
inverter; DC-AC converter; SPWM; Dual Functioning; PV
application
I. INTRODUCTION
The flyback converter is used in both AC/DC and DC/DC
conversion with galvanic isolation between the input and any
outputs. More precisely, the flyback converter is a buck-boost
converter with the inductor split to form a transformer, so that
the voltage ratios are multiplied with an additional advantage
of isolation. When driving for example a plasma lamp or a
voltage multiplier the rectifying diode of the buck-boost
converter is left out and the device is called a flyback
transformer. Inverters are electrical devices that convert direct
current (DC) to alternating current (AC). A DC-DC converter
changes a DC voltage level [1]. In [1] Hajihosseinlu used a
simple method in switching pulses to generate an ac output
voltage via a dc-dc converter. The converted AC can be at any
required voltage and frequency with the use of appropriate
transformers, switching, and control circuits. Inverters have
application in uninterruptible power supplies, induction
heating, HVDC power transmission, variable-frequency drives,
air conditioning and electric vehicle drives. There are several
characteristics of inverters efficiency. These specifications
which define the performance and efficiency of the inverter are
small size, little number of devices, isolated circuit, simple
circuit, minimization of total harmonic distortion (THD), low
cost and output of desirable and controllable voltage. To
achieve these demands, several power electronics circuit
topologies have been presented in literature [1][8]. Several
multilevel inverters have been also considered and proposed in
several papers in recent years [9], [10]. But in the multilevel
inverters the added complexity of the circuit, and the additional
components, reduce both the overall efficiency and reliability
of the system, and may raise the overall cost of the power
electronics interface. Also, there are different attempts to
reduce losses of switches with soft-switching method [11], but
this method adds extra component to circuit and makes it more
complex. In this paper a novel inverter has been proposed
which eliminates some of these disadvantages. The novel
inverter has only one switch which reduces energy losses and
costs. It has just one simple control system which can be
controlled with a simple microcontroller and this simple
control method sets the output voltage to exactly what is
needed: smaller or greater amplitude, AC or DC output
voltage. It consists of a small transformer that makes the circuit
isolated, a MOSFET, a diode, a capacitor and load. Therefore,
circuit is simple and its size is greatly reduced. Because of a
single switch, dead time is not needed between the switches.
As it is explained in section II, the output sinusoidal voltage is
controlled easily. Finally, in AC mode, its total harmonic
distortion, as it is proved in simulation results, is greatly low.
This paper is organized as follows:
In section II, the circuit topology is introduced. In section
III, numerical analysis is illustrated. In section IV, simulation
results and diagrams are portrayed. Finally, conclusion is
explained in section V. This papers overall discussion is about
the AC mode of the circuit, because the DC to DC mode is
quite simple and it namely is a flyback converter.
II. THE CIRCUIT TOPOLOGY
A. DC-DC converter circuit
DC-DC converter circuit is very simple and it can be any kind
of these converters such as Buck, Boost, Buck-boost and etc.
A simple schematic model for a DC-DC converter used in
photovoltaic application is shown in fig.1.





Figure1. DC generating application
B. Inverter circuit
Schematic figure of system when proposed converter produces
ac voltage is shown as follows. It does not need to change any
element of the circuit to switch the output mode between ac
and dc and vice versa. By changing pulses output voltage
easily changes.


Figure 2) AC generating application

The simplest structure of inverter is shown in Fig. 3. As it is
obvious, the circuit consists of four main components: a
transformer, a switch, a diode and a capacitor, which work
together to convert the DC voltage to a desirable voltage.

Figure 3) The structure of proposed inverter

C. Method of gate pulses for AC production
In this subsection the method of switching is explained. In
simulation, gate pulses are modeled by comparing a triangular
and a sinusoidal control signals as it is shown in Fig. 3. The
output of the comparator is 5 volts if (1) is applied and is 0
volts if (2) is applied.
Switch on if
control triangular
V V > (1)
Switch off if
control triangular
V V < (2)
Figure 1. Pulse width modulation with comparison of two signals
Frequency of control voltage is
control
f which can directly
control the output frequency and the frequency of carrier signal
(or triangular signal,
triangular
f ). The number of samples can be
defined as (3).

triangular
control
f
n
f
= (3)
For example, in this simulation frequency of triangular
signal is 1 KHz and the frequency of control voltage
(sinusoidal) is 50 Hz. So based on (3) and (4), the number of
samples is 20 in each period and the frequency of gate pulse is
1 KHz which is not a high frequency.

1
20
50
KHz
Hz
n = = (4)
Although with increase of triangular voltage frequency the
number of samples is increased, that causes better output
voltage and lower THD, in this frequency the simulation result
proves minimization of THD.
For better view of performance of the pulses and how they
cause sinusoidal voltage in output, Fig. 4 is applied. In this
figure three signals and output voltage are shown at the same
time.
For controlling the amplitude of output voltage to a
desirable sinusoidal voltage, m is defined as:

control
triangular
V
V
m = (5)
For m = 1, the inverter produces the sinusoidal voltage 10
volts peak to peak and the output voltage changes linearly with
the value of m. For m = 0.5 the output voltage is 5 volts peak to
peak. Fig. 5a and Fig. 5b show two different situations for
controlling of output voltage amplitude.

Figure 2. Three signals and output voltage with m = 1, n = 20,
f
triangular
= 1KHz and f
control
= f
Vout
= 50Hz
DC-DC
flyback
converter
DC-AC
INVERTER
SPWM
PWM

(a)

(b)

Figure 3. Control and triangular voltages with (a) m = 1 (b) m = 0.5
In this section and almost all of sections in this paper the
method is analyzed for AC producing since the DC-DC mode
is quite simple. With an easy change in the pulse method and
replacement of the sinusoidal control signal by a DC control
signal, pulses will be the same and this converter would change
to the conventional flyback converter.
III. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
When switch is turned on, the voltage of DC source is
dropped on primary winding of transformer and when it is
turned off the primary winding is short-circuited by diode.
Hence, the voltage of primary winding is ( )
DC g
V V t . ( )
g
V t
is shown in Fig. 6.
The voltage of secondary winding, ( )
s
V t , can be expressed
as:
( ) ( ) ( ) 2 1
s DC g
V t N N V V t = (6)
For instance, if N1=N2, the input voltage could be modeled as
equation (7).

() {

()
()
()
Assuming the solar energy is in a situation that generate
energy with 24 volts. So the modeled input voltage can be
illustrated in figure 4. It is notable that because modulation
ratio (m), as expressed in equation (5), is equal to 0.5, peak of
the input voltage is about 12 volts.

Figure 4. Modeling of input voltage
It is also worth mentioning that if voltage source changes,
because of any reasons, by adjusting of m output voltage
remains constant.
Input voltage in frequency domain could be considered and
analyzed. It is shown n Figure.5. There are mainly three group
of harmonics. First of all, DC part which is same as the
average of modeled input voltage

(). Secondly, the main

harmonic. Third, switching frequency which directly depends
on frequency ratio ,was defined in equation (3).

Figure 5. FFT analysis of Vin(t)

Figure 6. Circuit of the proposed inverter



The resistance of winding is much smaller than its
inductance and can be ignored. The transformer can be
modeled by an ideal transformer which has two inductors in
secondary. It is shown in Fig. 7.
By utilizing mentioned model of transformer, the circuit of
this inverter can be drawn as Fig. 8.
The Laplace transform of the output voltage, ( )
out
V S , can
be expressed in (7), in which ( )
s
V S is the Laplace transform
of ( )
s
V t .
( ) ( )
2
out s
R
V S V S
LCRS LS R
=
+ +
(7)
Therefore the output voltage, ( )
out
V t , can be summarized
as (8) :
( ) ( ) ( )
2 2
2
2 2
2 4
sin
2
4
t
RC
out s
R LCR L
V t e t V t
RCL
LCR L

( = -
(

(8)
( ) ( ) ( )
2 2
2
2 2
0
2 4
sin
2
4
t t
RC
out s
R LCR L
V t e t V d
RCL
LCR L

( =
(

}
(9)
In (8), the symbol ( - ) denotes the convolution integral. In
this inverter as it is illustrated in section II-A, ( )
s
V t is a pulse
which is obtained with pulse width modulation.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DIAGRAMS
The new inverter has been simulated with both PSIM and
MATLAB SIMULINK and both of results are brought and
verified. The circuit utilizes a DC voltage, a transformer, a
switch, a diode, a capacitor and a load. DC voltage is 10 volts,
the capacitor is 1mF, resistance load is 10 and the MOSFET
is switched in 1 KHz frequency. Transformer values are shown
in Table I.
TABLE I. TRANSFORMER VALUES
R1 0.01
R2 0.01
L1 1 mH
L2 1 mH
Lm 10 mH
N1 15
N2 15

Figure 7. The modeled transformer
Figure 8. The complete circuit is simulated in PSIM software
Figure 9. Two output voltages for circuit of Fig. 10
The parameters in Table I are the values of modeled
transformer which is shown in Fig. 9.
Due to the low number of windings and the small core of
the transformer, the magnetizing inductance is relatively low.
Small transformer core area causes increasing in leakage flux
that is modeled as
leakage
L . The circuit that is evaluated in
PSIM is shown in Fig. 10.
As it is shown in Fig. 10, there are two independent circuits
which work separately. The left circuit is the new inverter
circuit and the right circuit is sinusoidal voltage source. The
sinusoidal voltage source is set on a 10 volts peak to peak with
frequency of 50 Hz. The parameters of the inverter circuit are
evaluated in a way to produce a 10 volts peak to peak in 50 Hz.
These two output voltages are drawn in Fig. 11.
The original sinusoidal voltage that is produced by right
circuit is drawn with blue and the output voltage of the inverter
is drawn with red. As it is evident, the voltage which is
produced by this inverter is so close to a sinusoidal voltage that
it is very difficult to distinguish the two voltages from each
other. The circuit is also simulated with MATLAB SIMULINK
as it is shown in Fig. 12. It works with m = 0.5, so it produces 5
volts peak to peak based on (5).
The output voltage is shown in Fig. 13. The fundamental
amplitude is about 2.5 volts. The biggest harmonic, except first

harmonic (fundamental), is the DC output voltage which is
named harmonic number 0. It is about 9.18% of fundamental
frequency and the second harmonic is zero, because output
voltage is completely symmetrical. The third harmonic is
0.01%. The total harmonic distortion is defined as (10).

FFT analysis in SIMULINK

( )
2
2
1
i
i
V
THD
V

=
=

(10)
In which i is the harmonic number. If THD is evaluated,
approximately it is about 0.01%. The accurate value of THD is
also obtained in SIMULINK and from FFT browser. In FFT
browser the fundamental frequency is set to 50Hz and the
software evaluates the value of THD for 10 cycles that reach to
a steady state condition. As it is shown in Fig. 14, the THD is
reduced to a desirable value of 0.01%.
V. CONCLUSION
There are several attempts to ideally achieve a better structure
of inverters with less THD. In addition of generating a
desirable DC output voltage This new sturucture circuit also
produces a sinusoidal output voltage with THD lower than
1%. The inverter has been reduced in size because of
minimizing of components. It utilizes only one simple switch
which removes the problems of dead time. It does not need
several individual control systems and use only a simple
control method. The output voltage easily can be controlled in
amplitude and frequency. Plus the output voltage easily can be
swithed between ac and dc mode. This structure also can
produce an extremely high output voltage in the resonance
frequency. All of this statement is successfully simulated and
verified.
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