DC choppers Documented by Zahidur Rahman (208063707) Tshwane University of Technology 2011/1

A DC chopper is a DC DC converter, these DC chopper circuits are used to regulate and control the output DC voltage and output current of a load. The load properties must be inductive such that it causes an RL circuit with a back EMF voltage. The following properties are constants in the circuits.  EMF or E (reverse voltage caused by inductive load)  L (inductance of the load)  R (resistance of the load)  Vs (supply voltage)  (time constant;  ) The following factors are properties of the circuit that can be controlled by the designer to suit his/her needs  tT (pulse width, the time of how long the switch is on)  T (period of each pulse cycle)  (duty cycle; ratio in percentage between pulse width and period) There are 5 types of DC choppers  first quadrant DC chopper o positive voltage across load o positive current flow through load  second quadrant dc chopper o positive voltage across load o negative current flow through load  first and second quadrant DC chopper o positive voltage across load o load current can be positive, negative or zero  first and fourth quadrant DC chopper o load voltage can be positive, negative or zero o positive current flow through load  four quadrant DC chopper o load voltage can be positive, negative or zero o load current can be positive, negative or zero o all other chopper configurations are derived from this chopper In the analysis of the circuits, certain factors are assumed such as  No source impedance  Constant switch duty cycle  Steady state already reached  Ideal semi-conductor  No load impedance temperature effects

1) First quadrant DC chopper

In the first quadrant mode, the load voltage is always positive due to the freewheel diode. When the diagram below is examined, the operation of the circuit can be monitored

Diagram of a first quadrant DC chopper circuit In the circuit above, the transistor is used as a pulsated switch. The pulse of the switch can be from a 555 timer circuit. The operation of the circuit is as follows. When the switch T1 is on, the voltage of the supply flows freely through the load and back to the supply, this also means that the Diode in the circuit is reverse biased and thus it is an open circuit. This process also induces an EMF into the inductive load.

Transistor T1 is switched on When the transistor T1 switch is turned off, the load causes a back EMF that continues to flow due to the diode. This diode forces the current and voltage to remain positive and continue flowing in a loop.

Transistor T1 is switched off

The first quadrant DC chopper is called first quadrant because its voltage flow is positive and its current flow is positive as well. In the following graph, the reason becomes more apparent.

The shaded grey area is the area where this transistor can operate The first quadrant circuit can operate in two main modes, continuous load current and discontinuous load current mode. The difference between them is determined by the values of the following factors tT (pulse width) (time constant) E (reverse EMF) The difference between these two modes can be switched by controlling the period of the switching pulses. As the following graph depicts, by plotting the pulse width against the ratio between the reverse EMF and Vs

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf

As shown in the graph, the time ratio between the period and the time constant is varied and switches between the two modes. 1.1) Continuous load current mode In this mode, the current through the load never stops, in the graph shown below shows the flow.

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf As shown in the graph, the duty cycle allows the current flow to always be positive. The mean load voltage can be represented as follows  The mean load voltage is a product of the duty cycle and the supply voltage  And with the mean load voltage, the mean load current can be defined as

Since this is a first quadrant DC chopper, the difference between value to find a positive current value. 1.2) Discontinuous load current mode

and E is used as a positive

This mode is called discontinuous because sometimes when T1 is off for too long, IL can drop to 0A, the effect is shown in the graph below

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf To determine whether or not the chopper circuit is continuous or discontinuous, we have to calculate the off time tx as shown in the following equation:   

If the calculated value of tx is smaller than the value of T (period), then the circuit is a discontinuous mode first quadrant DC chopper. Thus the load values are calculated as follows: The load voltage can be represented in the following manner  

  

And the mean load voltage is calculated as in the following equation 

And since the mean load current is positive, the current is calculated the same way as of the continuous mode first quadrant DC chopper

2) Second quadrant DC chopper

This mode of the DC chopper is similar to the first quadrant DC chopper. This configuration causes a positive voltage across the load but the transistor and free wheel diode configuration causes the current to flow in a negative direction, when the transistor is switched off, the back EMF is forced to recharge the supply voltage supply due to the diode. This process is called regeneration. The regeneration rate is determined by the duty cycle of the switch. This DC chopper also operates in two modes, like the first quadrant DC chopper, it can operate in continuous and discontinuous mode.

Circuit diagram of a second quadrant DC chopper When this circuit reaches its steady state, the voltage across the load is positive although the current flow through it flows against the supply voltage due to the diode. When the transistor T1 is switched on, the current through the load flows through the transistor instead of the diode and the circuit can be represented as follows:

Transistor T1 is switched on When the transistor switch is turned off, the biasing of the diode blocks any voltage from the source, but due to the EMF of the load, the current discharges from the load, through the diode and into the supply voltage.

Transistor T1 is switched off Due to this configuration, the DC output across the load resistor can be represented in the following graph as shown

The shaded grey area is the area where this transistor can operate Similar to the first quadrant DC chopper, the second quadrant configuration also has two modes of load current flow, continuous and discontinuous load current. 2.1) Continuous load current mode When the transistor T1 is switched on, the load discharges into the transistor and the load current starts dropping, if the transistors duty cycle causes the transistor to switch off before the current through the load to not reach zero, that DC chopper will be a continuous dc chopper because IL > 0A. The following image explains the current flow through the load in relation to the voltage across it

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf As shown in the graph, when transistor T1 is off, the current through the load increases due to the regeneration effect into the supply voltage, when the switch is turned on, the load discharges into the transistor and the load current starts to drop, since the current never reaches zero, the configuration is defined as a continuous load current.

The load voltage can be represented as follows  The mean voltage can be calculated as follows  And with the mean voltage, the mean current can also be calculated as follows  This configuration is similar to the first quadrant DC chopper and thus similarities in the equations can be identified, since the current flow is negative, the difference between the supply voltage and EMF is used as a negative value. 2.2) Discontinuous load current mode If the duty cycle of the transistor T1 switch causes the load current to drop to zero, there is a short time window where the EMF of the load will cause a voltage across the load. As shown in the following graph, the voltage across the load is compared to the current across the load.

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf As shown in the graph, when the transistor T1 is switched on, the voltage across the load is zero, but the current through the load increases. With that, when T1 switches off, the voltage across T1 rises to the value of Vs, and the load current starts decreasing until it reaches zero, then the voltage across the load drops to the value of the EMF.

The load voltage can be represented as follows   

tx is the time of when the load current reaches zero until the end of the cycle period. This time can be calculated in a similar manner to that of the tx in the first quadrant discontinuous DC chopper. The difference in formulas is slight.   

Using these factors, the mean voltage across the load can be found by using the following formula  

And using the mean voltage value, the mean current can be found by simply using ohms law, the difference between the mean voltage and the EMF of the load is used as a negative value since we are working with the second quadrant DC chopper, thus the current is negative 

3) First and second quadrant DC chopper

The first and second quadrant DC chopper is used as a switch between operations by controlling the duty cycle of the transistors. There are two switches in this configuration, if both are switched on and off simultaneously, depending on the duty cycle of the pulses fed into the switches, the load current can be controlled to switch between positive or negative load current. The voltage across the load in this configuration always remains positive.

Circuit diagram of a first and second quadrant DC chopper This circuit can be seen in two different modes. They both differ in accordance to the current flow through the load. If transistors T1 and T2 are switched in a complementary manner, as in when T1 is on, T2 is off and vice-versa, although it causes a near zero current flow through the load current the load voltage remains positive. If one of the transistors were to be completely switched off, the circuit would act as either the first or the second quadrant DC chopper. If T1 is switched off, the circuit would work as a second quadrant chopper, if T2 is switched off, the circuit would work as a first quadrant chopper. In both cases, the load voltage and current calculations remain the same as in sections 2 and 3. If the switches were to operate independently, the use of this circuit would diminish.

Circuit diagram with T1 and D2 active Current flows from the source, through T1 and the load. The current loops around through D2.

Circuit diagram with T2 and D1 active When the input pulse is complemented and used for T2, the voltage stays positive by looping around due to transistor T2, the current travels through D1. In complementary mode, the current across the load becomes almost zero if the duty cycle is neat 50% because the current can switch between negative and positive, this makes the mean current almost equal to zero.

Picture extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf When the switches are in complementary mode, the output voltages can be represented as follows  And the mean output voltage can be calculated directly as a product of the duty cycle and the supply voltage 

The mean output current is where the circuit operation can get complex because the current flow of the load can switch between positive and negative.  

 

The differences in the peak currents are used to calculate the mean current and the internal EMF of the load has no influence on the current peaks. The peak currents can be calculated as follows

Image extracted from URL: The mean load current can be calculated by using the following equation. The direction of flow however has to be determined by calculating the peak current values using the equations above.  Although choosing a transistor to be active can control the flow of the current, there is a method of switching current flow direction by using both transistors simultaneously and changing only the duty cycle and the period of the transistor switch.

4) First and fourth quadrant DC chopper

This DC chopper topology is constructed so that the current through the load always stays positive but the voltage across the load can be controlled into becoming positive or negative. The control of the voltage is mostly dependant on the duty cycle of its transistors. The circuit consists of two half-H bridges; these bridges consist of a diode-transistor pair.

Circuit diagram of first and fourth quadrant DC chopper As shown in the circuit diagram, T1 and D1 form one of the half bridge circuits. When this circuit is operational, one of three scenarios is active T1 and T4 is switched on T1 is on and T4 is off or T1 is off and T4 is on Both T1 and T4 is off Scenario 1: when T1 and T4 is switched on, the circuit looks like this

T1 and T4 is on at the same time In this scenario, current flows through T1 into the load and through T4 and back to the source, this makes the voltage across the load positive and the current positive as well. Scenario 2: when one transistor is on and the other is off, for example, if T1 is on and T4 is off, the voltage across the load would be 0V because the current would loop from T1, through the load and then through D4 and back to T1. There would be no voltage drop across the load

Transistor T1 is on and T4 is off, voltage across the load is 0V

Transistor T1 is off and T4 is on, voltage across the load is 0V The circuits shown above are the possibilities of the transistors being switched in complementary to each other. Scenario 3: if both transistors are switched off, the current through the load will stay positive and continue to flow because the EMF of the load will bias both diodes, D1 and D4, but this will make the voltage across the load negative.

Circuit diagram with T1 and T4 switched off In these scenarios, the voltage across the load changes polarity but the current remains in the same direction. In the following graph, a comparison is done with the overlapping of on states between T1 and T4. The change in the duty cycle also determines the voltage across the load.
This DC chopper can operate in two quadrants, as the name suggests, it works on the first and fourth quadrant.

Active regions where the first and fourth quadrant DC chopper operates The following graphs are a product of complementary input pulses into switches T1 and T4.

Time graph of positive load voltage in first and fourth quadrant DC chopper Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf As shown in the above graph if the on state of each transistor overlap each other and the duty cycle of each pulse is more than 50%, the voltage across the load pulses positive and the output voltage can be read as positive as well as the current. When both T1 and T4 is on, the voltage across the load is positive.

Time graph of negative load voltage in first and fourth quadrant DC chopper Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf As seen in the graph above, the duty cycles are below 50% which means at some points, both T1 and T4 is off most of the time and a reverse voltage acts across the load, also the current stays positive while the voltage is negative. The supply current is negative. The output voltage of the chopper can vary into 3 different modes.

1) 0 (duty cycle is below 50%) In the second time graph, the voltage levels indicate that both switches are never on at the same time. This causes the voltage to be negative when both are off and zero when one is on. This means that the output operates in the fourth quadrant. The voltage output can be calculated as follows: We assume that   because when = 0, tT = T and VO = -Vs; and when = , tT = 0 and VO = 0V. These assumptions lead to the calculation of the mean output voltage as follows: For 0

2) 1 (duty cycle is above 50%) In the first time graph, the voltage levels indicate that at least one switch is on at all times, thus the voltage is always positive or else it is zero when one switched off.

and VO = Vs. These assumptions lead to the calculation of the mean output voltage as follows: For 1

We assume that 

because when = , tT = 0 and VO =0V; and when = 1, tT = T

In both cases 1 and 2, the mean current can be calculated as follows:  

The current for the reverse voltage will still be positive. 3) Bipolar voltage switching In this state, the voltage switches between positive and negative because both switches work synchronously, meaning that both switches are on and off at the same time, their pulses do not overlap. This switching behavior causes the mean voltage output to be calculated as follows:

In this mode, the voltage can switch between positive and negative which affect the current by causing it to switch between continuous and discontinuous load current. All calculations aside, the load current compared to the load voltage is shown in the graph below.

Image extracted from URL: http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf

4) Four quadrant DC chopper

Bibliography: Almost all the contents of this document is based on the notes written by Prof. B W Williams, his link into the chapter of DC choppers can be found on the following website

http://homepages.eee.strath.ac.uk/~bwwilliams/Book/Chapter%2013.pdf More information on this document is based on the following links http://encon.fke.utm.my/notes/MSc-Chopper.pdf http://www.scribd.com/doc/24544535/DC-Choppers http://www.slideshare.net/stootypal/dc-choppers