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A Bidirectional ACDC Power Converter with Power Factor Correction

S. Y. (Ron) Hui, Senior Member, IEEE, Henry Shu-Hung Chung, Member, IEEE, and Siu-Chung Yip
AbstractThis paper presents new operation and performance of a thyristor-based acdc current-controlled boost-type converter that allows bidirectional power handling capability and provides input power factor correction and a near-sinusoidal input current waveform. The new converter can reduce harmonic pollution and disturbance on the supply mains. The feature of bidirectional power flow allows the stored energy in loads, such as motors, to regenerate back to the supply source, leading to an increase in overall energy efficiency and possibly a reduction in the size of the dc link capacitor. The operation is confirmed with the successful implementation of an experimental prototype. Index TermsHigh power converters, power factor corrections.

I. INTRODUCTION ANY EXISTING power converters and motor drive systems draw nonsinusoidal input current from the AC supply mains. The classical acdc rectification approach of using a full-wave diode bridge followed by a bulk capacitor is unsuitable because of the undesirable input current harmonic content [1]. Other equipment using the same power supply may be adversely affected by these current harmonics. Thus, international standards, such as IEC-1000 and IEEE-519, have imposed restrictions on the harmonic contents of the input current. Many research efforts [2][11] have focused on the control of harmonic emission from power electronics circuits. Harmonic control techniques such as 1) passive filtering, 2) active filtering, and 3) power factor conditioning/correction have been used. One problem associated with many existing drive systems with frequent regeneration is that the size of the dc link capacitor is often very large in order to limit the link voltage. Normally, a large capacitor bank of thousands of micro-Farad is required. The large capacitor bank not only increases the size and weight of the converter equipment, but also the equipment cost. If a braking resistor is used to dissipate the regenerative energy, the overall efficiency of the drive system becomes low. In order to reduce the link capacitor, a bidirectional switched-mode rectifier can be used so that regenerative energy can be absorbed by the supply instead of being stored in large capacitor bank or dissipated in a braking resistor. With the bidirectional feature, the switched mode converter concept originally developed for
Manuscript received July 28, 1998; revised May 23, 2000. This paper was supported by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong under Project (CERG Project 9040355) and the Small Grant Scheme of the City University of Hong Kong (SRG Project 7000692). Recommended by Associate Editor P. K. Jain. The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail: eeronhui@cityu.edu.hk). Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8993(00)07323-3.

Fig. 1. Schematic of a commonly used single-phase bidirectional power flow acdc converter.

switched mode power supplies can now be employed in electronic drive systems. Various topologies that have bidirectional flow capability have been proposed [7][10]. For single-phase system, the commonly used bidirectional converter topology consists of four fully controlled switches as shown in Fig. 1. Most of these proposals use expensive fully controlled switches such as GTO thyristors or IGBT [7][9]. One exception is a bidirectional converter circuit [11] that uses primarily SCR thyristors and one fully controlled switch such as IGBT. The use of SCR thyristors in the acdc front rectification power stage is advantageous because 1) SCR thyristors are low-cost and highly robust and 2) they can be commutated naturally, making switching control simple. The bidirectional power flow capability of this converter, that draws rectangular currents, has been successfully demonstrated in [7][11]. In this paper, a primarily thyristor-based bidirectional power circuit is re-examined and modified. Its potential for power factor correction is explored. It will be shown that, by the use of a simple control method, this converter can provide power factor correction in both power flow directions. The input current can be sinusoidally shaped to follow the input voltage (i.e., either in phase with the input voltage in motoring operation or 180 out of phase with the input voltage in the regenerating mode). Thus, the current distortion factor approaches unity and the new converter operation can reduce harmonic pollution and disturbances on the power supply by minimizing the input current harmonics. The bidirectional feature allows stored energy in the load, such as a motor, to be recovered back to the supply, leading to an increase in overall energy efficiency and an reduction in the dc link capacitance. This bidirectional converter can be applied to general industrial electronic motor drive systems. Because of the power factor correction feature,

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Fig. 2. Proposed high-power-factor bidirectional power flow acdc converter: (a) positive half cycle of power source, (b) negative half cycle of power source, and (c) timing diagram.

the proposed circuit can meet new international harmonics standards. Section II describes the operating principles of the proposed converter under motoring mode and regenerating mode. Section III gives the theoretical analysis and design equations. Section IV shows a design example and the experimental results. Section V presents conclusions.

II. PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION Fig. 2 shows the circuit configuration of the proposed high power factor acdc bidirectional converter. It consists of three main components. They are the power conversion stage, inductor average current controller, and the synchronization circuit for triggering the thyristors. The power conversion stage consists of four low-cost, highly robust thyristors ( ), two fully controlled switches ( and , such as IGBTs or power and ), one inductor and one camosfets), two diodes ( must be a fully conpacitor . It is important to note that could be a thyristor as demonstrated in [10], trolled switch. is chosen to be a fully controlled switch in this [11]. But study. This point will be addressed at the end of this section. The operating mode of the converter (i.e., either in motoring mode or in regenerating mode) is controlled by the conduction state of , which is determined either by sensing the dc link voltage or by a control signal generated by a motor drive controller [11]. For motoring operation, the converter is operis kept in the blocking state. ated as a boost converter and

For regeneration, is turned on and the converter is operated as a buck converter. For both motoring and regeneration operis used to shape the current to follow a sinusoidal ations, waveform. Under normal operation, the select signal controls and changes the triggering signal applied to through the synchronization network. The synchronization network synchronizes the conduction of the rectifying thyristors ( ) with the line voltage. The operations of the power conversion stage and the timing diagrams of are illustrated in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. A. Motoring Operation The triggering signals of are synchronized with the by the synchronization network shown in Fig. 2. line voltage is turned off for the entire motoring period. is forwardand are turned on in the positive half cycle of biased. while and are turned on in the negative half cycle. A boost and [14]. The inductor converter is formed by is controlled to follow the rectified waveform of current (i.e., ) by a PWM signal generated from a current mode controller [15]. As shown in Fig. 5, the feedback current is compared with the reference sinusoidal waveform and is forced to remain between the maximum and the minimum . values of Fig. 6 shows the operations of the motoring mode. It consists of Topology AI and Topology AII in one switching cycle of (where period . AI is operated for a time interval of is the duty cycle of ) and AII is operated for a time interval . of

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is the initial value of at the beginning of a switching cycle. At the end of this interval (2) 2) Topology AIIFig. 6(b):

(3) At the end of the cycle (4) By using (4), the ideal quasi steady-state conversion characteristic is given by
(a)

(5) As , (6) . where : If the input current of 3) Average Output Current is assumed to be perfectly sinusoidal and the the converter conversion efficiency is assumed to be 100% (7) and

(b)

(8) is the peak value of . where is controlled by the current controller, the output As . voltage can be varied by changing 4) Design of the Value of : The value of is determined by the desired ripple in . Considering the input current shown is given as in Fig. 6, its peak-to-peak value (9) with respect to Differentiating expression to zero gives and equating the

(10)
(c) Fig. 3. Operation of the converter in the motoring mode: (a) positive half cycle of power source, (b) negative half cycle of power source, and (c) timing diagram.

. The minimum value of that for maximum value of is, limits the maximum ripple current to a value

1) Topology AIFig. 6(a):

is defined as (1) (11)

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(a)

Fig. 5. Waveforms of i

and i

(b)

power supply. As shown in Fig. 4, and are turned on in the positive half cycle while and are turned on in the negative half cycle. The operation is simply achieved by triggering the select switch in Fig. 2 to exchange the synchronization signals applied to . It should be noted that the thyristors are pre-triggered in their half cycle with an advance angle of about 15 degrees. For example, if the supply source is in the positive half cycle and and are in the ON state [Fig. 4(a)], and will be pre-triggered [11] at about 15 degrees before the voltage supply source goes to negative half cycle [Fig. 4(b)]. Pre-triggering the inand enables the outgoing thyristors coming thyristors and to naturally commutated without using extra commutation circuit. In this operating mode, the converter is operated as a buck converter, feeding power from the regenerative load to the is out of phase with supply source. The phase current the supply voltage. The operation of the current mode controller is still applicable since the inductor current is flowing in the same direction as that in the motoring mode. Both the motoring mode and regenerating mode have a similar inductor current profile [Fig. 3(c) and Fig. 4(c)]. Fig. 7 shows the two stages of operation, namely Topology B-I and Topology B-II in one switching cycle and the inductor current waveform. In this mode, the first topology is operating for a time interval (where is the duty cycle of ) and the second of . topology is operating for a time interval of is 1) Topology BIFig. 7(a): In one switching cycle, given by (12) is the initial value of the inductor current at the beginning of the switching cycle. This stage is defined by the ON time of (i.e., ). At the end of this stage (13) 2) Topology BIIFig. 7(b): is given by (14)

(c) Fig. 4. Operations of the converter in the regenerating mode.

B. Regenerating Mode During the regenerating mode, switch is turned on and is reverse-biased. The converter now acts as a buck converter with the voltage across the bulk capacitor as the input voltage. In this mode, are operated in anti-phase with the operation in motoring mode, so that power can be fed back to the ac

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By using (15), the ideal quasi-steady-state conversion characteristic is given by (16) As (17) . where is assumed to be 3) Average Output Current: Again, if sinusoidal and the conversion efficiency is 100% (18) and

(19)
Fig. 6. Operation of boost converter.

is determined by , the reversible power from the As . load to the supply side can be controlled by adjusting 4) Design the Value of : As illustrated in Fig. 7, the ripple flowing through the inductor is current

(20) It gives the same expression as (9). Therefore, the minimum that limits the maximum ripple current to a value inductor is (21) In the above mathematical derivations, the output voltage is assumed to be constant. The choice of a semi-controlled switch such as thyristor or depends on the a fully-controlled switch such as IGBT for maximum voltage ripple allowed in the dc link capacitor. In the motoring mode, the dc link voltage is larger than the peak voltage of the ac line voltage because the converter acts as a boost converter. is turned on for regeneration. If a thyristor is used for , will only be turned off naturally when its current falls below its latching value. Because the converter now acts as a buck converter in the regenerating mode, the dc link voltage across the bulk capacitor (input voltage of the buck converter) must drop below the instantaneous value of the rectified ac line voltage (output voltage of the buck converter) for the current in to fall to zero. This means that the voltage fluctuation of the

Fig. 7. Operation of buck converter (a) Upper trace: line voltage v (Ch1 : 250 V/div) and Lower trace: line current i (Ch4 : 5 A/div). (b) Upper trace: line voltage v (Ch1 : 250 V/div) and Lower trace: inductor current i (Ch4 : 5 A/div). (c) Upper trace: v (250 V/div) and Lower trace: v (100 V/div).

This stage is defined for the period of Therefore

).

(15)

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dc link voltage could be large. When there is a mode change from regeneration to motoring, the boost converter must increase dc link capacitor voltage above the peak value of the line voltage before line current shaping becomes effective. If this voltage fluctuation is to be kept small, then it is better to use a fully controlled switch for . III. DESIGN EXAMPLE The induction motor is designed for 110 V operation. A step-down transformer was used to step down the 220 V ( ) into 110 V ( ). An experimental ac/dc converter was tested under the following conditions:

(a)

(This frequency is arbitrarily chosen.) of The output power is 500 W. Therefore, the value of is (22) The values of from (6) and from (17) are (23) Under motoring mode, the current ripple is

(24) By using (11) and (21), the minimum value of the inductor should be based on the ripple current in (24)

(b)

(25) The prototype bidirectional converter has been tested under motoring and regenerating conditions. During the motoring test, the converter was loaded with an electronic load. The regenerative test was carried out by connecting a dc voltage source to the converter output. Experimental results for motoring and regenerating operations are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively. and input current Figs. 8(a) and 9(a) show the supply voltage during of the bidirectional converter . is in phase with the motoring mode and is 180 out of phase during the regenerating mode. Some slight distortion can be observed in the regenerative current near the zero crossing region. This current distortion is due to the pre-triggering of the incoming thyristors and as explained earlier. Fig. 8(b) shows the waveforms of in the motoring operation. Fig. 8(c) shows inductor current

(c) Fig. 8. Experimental waveforms in the motoring mode.

the waveforms of and . These experimental results confirm the bidirectional power flow and power factor correction capability of the new operation of the converter. Further work is being carried out to a complete electronic AC drive system.

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Fig. 9. Experimental waveforms in the regenerating mode. Upper trace: v (250 V/div) and Lower trace: i (5 A/div).

[7] J. T. Boys and A. W. Green, Current forced single phase reversible rectifier, IEE Proc. Part B, vol. 136, no. 5, pp. 205212, 1989. [8] M. Morimoto, K. Oshitani, K. Sumito, and S. Okuma, New single phase unity power factor PWM converter inverter system, in Proc. IEEE PESC89, 1989, pp. 585589. [9] F. Rahman, L. Zhong, and S. Y. R. Hui, A single-phase, regenerative variable speed induction motor drive, in EPE95, 1995, pp. 37773780. [10] R. M. Davis and C. G. Alexander, A bidirectional ACDC power converter for fixed polarity dc loads, in Proc. IEE PEVD88, 1988, pp. 142145. [11] P. Weeler, J. Clare, and M. Sumner, The integration of a bidirectional rectifier and a voltage fed inverter in an optimized high performance variable speed ac motor drive system, in Proc. IEE PEVD96, 1996, pp. 396400. [12] L. Morln, L. Fernndez, J. Dixon, and R. Wallace, A simple and low cost control strategy for active power filters connected in cascade, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 44, pp. 621629, Oct. 1997. [13] W. M. Grady, M. J. Samotyi, and A. H. Noyola, Survey of active power line conditioning methodologies, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 5, pp. 15361542, July 1990. [14] M. H. Rashid, Power Electronics: Circuits, Devices, and Applications, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1993. [15] R. Mammano and R. Neidorff, Improving power factorA new active controller simplifies the task, in Proc. Power Conversion, Oct. 1989, pp. 100109.

IV. CONCLUSIONS A new converter switching operation of a bidirectional acdc power converter is presented and practically demonstrated. It has the following advantages: 1) The converter system can be operated with unity power factor for bidirectional power flow conditions and thus can reduce harmonic pollution of ac drives. 2) The power-factor-corrected ac/dc converter uses a phase controlled thyristor rectifier (with two additional controlled switches), that are low-cost and robust. 3) Since the converter has bidirectional power flow capability, the energy storage requirement and therefore the size of the dc link capacitor can be reduced. 4) The direction of the current flow in the inductor is the same under both motoring and regenerating conditions. This makes the current control simple. The proposed operation provides a low-cost and reliable option for AC motor drive systems that require frequent regeneration. The control strategy adopted in the demonstration is simple and commonly used in current-controlled power converters. The power factor correction feature of the new converter operation therefore does not require a complicated control system. REFERENCES
[1] D. Simonotti, J. Sebastn, and J. Uceda, The discontinuous conduction mode sepic and cuk power factor preregulators: Analysis and design, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 44, pp. 630637, Oct. 1997. [2] J. Holtz and L. Springob, Reduced harmonics PWM controlled line-side converter for electric drivers, in Proc. IEEE-IAS Annu. Meeting Seattle, WA, Oct. 712, 1990, vol. II, pp. 959964. [3] M. K. Nalbant and J. Klein, Design of a 1 kW power factor corrector circuits, in Proc. Power Conv., Oct. 1989, pp. 121135. [4] R. Itoh and Ishizaka, Single phase sinusoidal rectifier with step up/down characteristics, IEE Proc. Part B, vol. 138, no. 6, pp. 338344, Nov. 1991. [5] N. Mohan, T. Undeland, and R. J. Ferraro, Sinusoidal line current rectification with a 100 kHz BSIT step-up converter, in Proc. IEEE PESC84, 1984, pp. 9298. [6] M. Kazerani, P. D. Ziogas, and G. Joos, A novel active current waveshaping technique for solid state input power factor conditioners, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 38, pp. 7278, Feb. 1991. S. Y. (Ron) Hui (SM94) was born in Hong Kong in 1961. He received the B.Sc. degree (with honors) from the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, U.K., in 1984, and the D.I.C. and Ph.D. degrees from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, U.K., in 1987. He was a Lecturer in power electronics at the University of Nottingham, U.K., from 1987 to 1990. In 1990, he went to Australia and took up a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he became a Senior Lecturer in 1991. Later, he joined the University of Sydney and was promoted to Reader of Electrical Engineering and Director of Power Electronics and Drives Research Group in 1996. Presently, he is a Chair Professor of Electronic Engineering and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong. He has published over 150 technical papers, including about 80 refereed journal publications. His research interests include all aspects of power electronics. Dr. Hui received the Teaching Excellence Award from the City University of Hong Kong in 1999. He is a Fellow of the IEE, the IEAust, and the HKIE. He has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS since 1997.

Henry Shu-Hung Chung (S92M95) received the B.Eng. degree (with first class honors) in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Since 1995, he has been with the City University of Hong Kong. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering. His research interests include time- and frequency-domain analysis of power electronics circuits, switched-capacitor-based converters, random-switching techniques, digital audio amplifiers, fuzzy-logic control, and soft-switching converters. He has authored over 105 technical papers including over 47 refereed journal publications. Dr. Chung received the China Light and Power Prize and the Scholarship and Fellowship of the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund in 1991 and 1993, respectively. He is currently Chairman of the Council of the Sir Edward Youde Scholars Association and IEEE student branch counselor. He was Track Chair of the Technical Committee on Power Electronics Circuits and Power Systems, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, from 1997 from 1998. He is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSPART I.

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Siu-Chung Yip received the B.Eng. degree (with honors) in electronic engineering from the City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, in 1997 where he is currently pursuing the PhD. degree. His research interests include design of acdc power converters, analysis of power factor correction techniques, and design of bidirectional power converters.