Addis Ababa Science and Technology University

College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

Department of Electrical and computer Engineering
Stream power system engineering (MSc)

Advanced Power Electronics Assignment

Name ID
1. Adugna Abdissa…………………………….….. ETS 0081/09
2. Nathenael Mesfin…………………………………. ETS 0762/09
3. Yarad Regassa………………………………. ETS 0997/09
4. Yeshewas Demewoz…....………………………….ETS 1013/09

Submission date - Dec14, 2019 GC

Submission to - Dr. Kemal Ibrahim (PhD)

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Design consideration for input
filters and converters
Contents
1. Introduction………………………………………………………….3
2. Design consideration for input filters……………………………4
2.1 Input filters………………………………………………………………4
2.2 Function of Input Filter Circuit………………………………….5
2.3 Design of input filters for converter………………………6
2.31 Capacitance and inductance selection……………………….6

2.32 Stability Criteria with Input Filter………………………………………7

2.33 Damping the Input Filter……………………………………………8

3. Design consideration of Converters ………………………10

3.1 Converters………………………………………………………………11

3.2 Design of converters…………………………………………….11

3.21 Critical Points in Designing Converter Circuits ……...11

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….16
5. Reference………………………………………………………………………….16

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Design consideration for input
filters and converters1
1. Introduction
Today almost all modern equipment uses some sort of power
conditioning. There are a lot of different circuit topologies used.
When you get to the bottom line, all power conditioning
requires some kind of an input filter. The input LC filter has
become very critical in its design and must be designed not only
for EMI but also for system stability and for the amount of ac
ripple current drawn from the source.

converters must provide high conversion efficiency and

also minimize board space for the associated power control
IC, inductor, capacitors, and resistors. In addition, these
“micro” converters must minimize the number of
components, so their board layout is simple and minimum
noise occurs, which reduces development time.

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 2. Design consideration for input filters
2.1 Input filters
When designing Converter circuits, it is common to add the
input filter circuit before the power stage. An LC filter is one of
most frequently used input filter circuit. An input filter is often
needed for the converter as it serves to prevent the converter
switching current ripples from being reflected back into the
source, into the line; also the input filter attenuates the
switching harmonics from the line present in the converter
input current. The input filter generally limits conducted
electromagnetic interference (EMI). The input filter protects
the converter and its load from transients that appear in
the input voltage, thereby improving the system reliability.
However, if a design is not optimal, input filter circuit may
cause large output noise instead of suppressing the noise, and
may even cause loop stability problems. So careful design of
input filter is a necessity for optimal operation of converters

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 Fig1.1 block diagram for input filter

2.2 Function of Input Filter Circuit

Input filters are widely used in power design. They have two
main purposes: one is to suppress the noise and surge from the
front stage power supply; another is to decrease the
interference signal at switching frequency and its harmonic
frequency to go back to the power supply and interfere other
devices which uses the power supply. The input filter design is
very important to pass the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
test.

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 2.3 Design of input filters for converter
LC passive filters are among the common filters for
converters. They can attenuate the high frequency noise
from the power supply and can also suppress the switching
noise to go back to the power supply.so this paper presents
detailed design consideration for capacitance and
inductance selection, stability criteria and damping of LC
input filter.

2.31 Capacitance and inductance selection

Another important issue affecting the final performance of
the filter is the right selection of capacitors and inductors.
For high frequency attenuation, capacitors with low ESL
(equivalent series inductance) and low ESR (equivalent
series resistance) for ripple current capability must be
selected. The most common capacitors used are the
aluminum electrolytic type. To achieve low ESR and ESL the
output capacitor could be split into different smaller
capacitors put in parallel to achieve the same total value.
Filter inductors should be designed to reduce parasitic
capacitance as much as possible, the input and output leads
should be kept as far apart as possible and single layer or
banked windings are preferred. And the requirement for the

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input inductor is to provide a low ac ripple current to the
source.

Fig 1.2 LC input filter with BUCK converter

2.32 Stability Criteria with Input Filter

When the load is heavy, the oscillation is much larger than
light load, because larger load current brings smaller
negative incremental input impedance, which means much
smaller damping ratio, or even brings stability problem.
Capacitor ESR, Inductor DCR and power source output
impedance RO are also very critical for stability, because
they also bring damping to the LC filter.so different
selection of Capacitor ESR, Inductor DCR and power source
output impedance RO are solved from fig 1.3.

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 Fig 1.3 Equivalent circuit for stability analysis

After having some mathematical calculation we found these

equations. And the transfer function is given by

……Eq1
So the stability requirement is

2.33 Damping the Input Filter

If oscillation happens after adding a LC filter circuit,
normally decreasing the inductor value or increasing the

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capacitor value may increase the damping ratio and remove
the oscillation, but this will also change the target LC filter
characteristic. Another way is to add an additional damping
circuit after the LC filter circuit. There are different
topologies of adding damping circuit’s example series,
parallel, two stage damping circuits. For instance let’s take a
look at parallel damping circuit shown below in fig 1.4 the
resistor is to damp the filter, and because we only want to
damp the middle frequency amplitude peak value, there is
no need to use a pure resistor as the damping circuit.
Rather, a series capacitor Cd can be used to avoid large
power dissipation on the resistor. A capacitor much larger
than C is required for the LC filters to detect Rd at the
middle frequency, Cd ≥ 4C may be an acceptable value, and
there is no need to use good-quality capacitor like C to
saving cost.

Fig1.4 parallel damped filter

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By adding the damping circuit, the absolute value of
the equivalent input impedance value will increase, which
increases the damping ratio of the LC filter.

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 3. Design consideration of Converters
3.1 Converters
A dc–dc converter converts directly from dc to dc and is
simply known as a dc converter .A dc converter can be
considered as dc equivalent to an ac transformer with a
continuously variable turn’s ratio. Like a transformer, it can
be used to step down or step up a dc voltage source.
Dc converters are widely used for traction motor control in
electric automobiles, trolley cars, marine hoists, forklift
trucks, and mine haulers. They provide smooth acceleration
control, high efficiency, and fast dynamic response.

3.2 Design of converters

3.21 Critical Points in Designing Converter Circuits
Among specification requirements for converter circuits, the
following are considered critical:
1. Stable operation (Not to be broken down by operation
failure such as abnormal switching, or burnout or over-
voltage)
2. High efficiency
3. Small output ripple
4. Good load-transient response

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These properties can be improved to some extent by
changing the converter IC and external parts. Weightings of
these four properties vary with individual applications. In
the following, let’s consider how to select individual parts to
improve these properties.

1. How to select the switching frequency?

Converter circuits have their unique switching frequencies.
In general, they affect the circuit properties as shown in
Table 1 below:

Table 1. Relationships between switching frequency and

properties

Properties Low High

Maximum efficiency High Low
Output current at maximum Heavy
Light load
efficiency load
Ripple Large Small
Response speed Slow Fast

2. Selecting the Field Effect Transistor (FET)

Efficient converter circuits may be designed by selecting
the absolute maximum ratings of the voltage and the
current that are equal to 1.5 to 2 times of the operating

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voltage and current to reduce the failure rates against spike
noises and impulse noises at the switching time, and that
minimize the losses by RDS and CISS.
Loss by CISS is the power dissipated at the condition of
charging/discharging between the gate and the source of
the FET and can be expressed with CISSVGS2f/2.
Loss by RDS is the heat dissipated by resistance components
between the drain and the source of the FET and is
expressed as RDSID2.

3. Selecting the Coil

An optimal L value varies with switching frequency as the
coil current is in proportion to the duration of activation of
the FET and is in reverse proportion to the L value.
Loss by coil appears as a sum of the coil's wire-wound
resistance RDC and the loss generated in the ferrite core. In
switching frequencies of up to 2MHz, it is considered that
the RDC of the coil is mainly responsible for the coil losses.
Therefore, firstly select a coil with a small RDC value.
However, if minimizing RDC results in selection of too small
a L value, the current value while the FET is activated
becomes too large, increasing heat losses from the FET, SBD
and coil, and reducing the efficiency. Also, the ripple
becomes larger due to this increased current. From the
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above mentioned an appropriate L value for an individual
switching frequency is determined by considering both
dimensions and efficiencies.

4. Selecting the Barrier Diodes (BD)

As to absolute maximum ratings, approximately 1.5 to 2
times of the working ratings should be selected due to the
same reason as for selecting the FET. Loss by BD is the sum
of the forward heat loss VF×IF and the reverse leakage
current IR. Therefore, selecting smaller values for both VF
and IR are desirable. However, VF and IR are in inverse
relation to each other, so the choice of the most
appropriate BD will depend on the load current of the
application. As VF increases at the heavy-load and IR is
constant independent of the load current, selecting a
smaller IR value at the light-load condition is effective for
improved efficiency, and selecting a smaller VF value is
effective at the heavy-load condition.

5. Selecting the CL
If a larger CL value is selected, the output ripple becomes
smaller. However, an unnecessarily large CL value increases
the dimensions of the capacitor, increasing the cost.
Determine the CL value based on the targeted ripple level. If

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the targeted ripple level is to be in the range of 10mV to
40mV. The values of CL used for step up and step down for
the same output current and the same capacitor type the
capacitances are different.

6. Selecting the RFB1 and RFB2

With an FB (feedback) model, RFB1 and RFB2 are used to
determine output voltage. If a wide variety of combinations
of RFB1 and RFB2 are available for an identical output voltage,
the sum of RFB1 and RFB2 is recommended to be in the range
of 150kΩ to 500kΩ. In this case, the efficiency at the light-
load condition and the output stability at the heavy-load
condition need to be considered. The currents flowing
through RFB1 and RFB2 are not used for the output power and
regarded as loss of the DC/DC converter. Therefore, to
improve the efficiency at the light-load condition, larger
values (RFB1+RFB2<1MΩ) should be selected.

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 4. Conclusion
As discussed above converters are essential
electronic devices which area widely used in home,
industries, transportation and in other utilities.as it
is an emerging and enabling technology the proper
design of such equipment is very mandatory.so in
this paper we analyzed and presented the design
consideration for both input filter and the converter
as a result following this design considerations is
very necessary.it helps to avoid stability problems
and have high converter efficiency.

5. Reference
1. www.torax.com
2. Rashid 3rd edition
3. Texas Instruments, Input Filter Design
4. www.youtube.com
5. Mohan-Power-Electronics highlighted

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