Capacitor Ripple Current in an Interleaved PFC Converter

• Published in: IEEE transactions on power electronics Vol. 24; no. 6; pp. 1506 - 1514
• Main Authors: Jinsong Zhu, Pratt, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.06.2009; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Capacitance; Capacitor ripple current; Capacitors; Capacitors. Resistors. Filters; Circuit properties; Circuits; Converters; Density; Dielectric, amorphous and glass solid devices; Electric currents; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Energy storage; Exact sciences and technology; Experiments; interleaved; Interleaved codes; Mathematical analysis; Methodology; Power electronics, power supplies; Power factor correction; power factor correction (PFC); Power generation; Power supplies; Power supply; Power system stability; Ripples; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Signal convertors; Switching converters; Various equipment and components; Voltage; Power density; Power converter; Circuit design; Outage; Energy storage capacitor; High density; Direct current convertor; Power factor correction; Power system stability; Power supply; Power capacitor; Power electronics; interleaved; Experimental study; DC-DC power convertors; High power; Capacitance; Power factor regulation; power factor correction (PFC); Miniaturization; Capacitor ripple current; Computer aided design; Comparative study; Energy storage
• ISSN: 0885-8993; 1941-0107
• DOI: 10.1109/TPEL.2009.2014164

To achieve high-power density in power supplies, it is desirable to minimize the physical size of the energy storage capacitor. The capacitance is determined by the energy storage requirement for line outage ride-through and also the ripple current handling capability of the capacitor. Interleaving is well known as an effective method to reduce the capacitor ripple current and in cases where ripple current considerations dominate, it could reduce capacitor size. This paper presents a methodology to calculate the ripple current, both for single phase and for m interleaved phases of power factor correction converters operating with constant load or a DC-DC converter load. Experimental results from a commercial power supply yielded a small error when compared to the calculations, showing that the proposed methodology has enough accuracy to be used as a design tool.