Modeling Power Factor Correction Circuits with

LTspice
Michael Giesselmann, Vishwajit Roy
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA
[email protected]

Abstract—LTspice is a powerful simulation language that is purpose to reduce harmonics in the input current (active power
specifically optimized for modeling Switch Mode Power factor correction PFC) is described in US Patent 5,019,952 [4].
conversion. It is not limited to small numbers of nodes and freely
available [1]. We are presenting several examples of simulations
for popular electronic power factor correction circuits that
II. BASIC AC RECTIFIER CIRCUIT
improve the input power factor of AC Power Supplies by active
wave-shaping of the AC input current and the associated A. Topology of a single phase AC rectifier circuit
avoidance of harmonics. The simulations are performed using a Figure 1 shows the topology of a basic single phase, full
cycle-by cycle switching approach as well as using a time bridge rectifier circuit laid out in LTspice. The sinusoidal AC
averaged PWM model. A fast inner current loop is controlling input source (V1) is solidly grounded. For stability, the
the shape of the input current such that it matches the sinusoidal negative rail of the rectifier (labeled Out-) is also grounded via
shape of the AC input voltage. A time averaged PWM model is a 1 MΩ resistor. To de-clutter the schematic, this is done in the
useful for fast simulations covering many cycles to design and small pre-charge device with the Out+ and Out- terminals in
study secondary feedback control that regulates the output the right lower side of the schematic. This symbol was created
voltage of the converter. using the symbol editor in LTspice. The associated sub-circuit
for this device is shown in Figure 2. This sub-circuit will pre-
Keywords—Boost converter; Power Factor Correction; Time
charge capacitor C1 to 180 volts at the start of the simulation
Averaged models; Feedback control; LTspice
and then disconnect from the circuit by opening a switch.
I. INTRODUCTION Figure 3 shows the waveforms associated with this rectifier
Today power supplies with AC voltage input for many circuit as a result of the simulation with LTspice. The upper
applications must adhere to current distortion limits outlined in trace represents the voltage on the output capacitor C1 while
IEEE standard 519-2014 [2]. Excessive harmonic content in the lower trace shows the input current. It can be seen that the
the input current of power supplies fed by the AC power grid input current is highly distorted with peaks around the peaks of
(virtually all) cases a low power factor since only the the input voltage. The resulting large harmonic content of this
fundamental component of the current contributes to real current can be seen in Figure 4 which was created using the
power delivery. This will lead to excessive heating of power FFT function of the LTspice waveform viewer.
lines and distribution transformers. As a consequence, the
power rating of the distribution grid is less than the design
specifications and power quality problems due to voltage
distortions caused by non-linear (non-sinusoidal) currents can
upset sensitive loads. A typical power supply is taking in 120
V rms single phase at 60 Hz and converts it to DC in the first
step for further processing. The typical full bridge rectifier used
for this application will lead to highly distorted current, since
the filter capacitor is only being recharged at twice power
frequency around the peak of the input voltage. This is
described in [3] in chapter 5 on pages 98 – 100. A Boost
converter described in [3], chapter 7, on pages 172-178 is a
basic power electronics converter with an inductor in series
with the input terminal. Since the current in an inductor is
always continuous, it is possible to shape the current to a
desired (sinusoidal) waveform using proper control of the
power MOSFET. This is described in [3] in chapter 18, p. 490.
Use of a Boost converter in AC-DC power supplies with the Fig. 1. LTspice schematic of a basic full bridge rectifier circuit.

978-1-5386-5453-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 162

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 III. LTSPICE SIMULATION OF BOOST CONVERTERS FOR PFC
In this chapter we will analyze an input rectifier that uses a
Boost converter for wave-shaping of the input current of a full
bridge rectifier. By commanding a sinusoidal current,
harmonics are drastically reduced resulting in a power factor
that is approaching unity.

A. Abbreviations and Acronyms

Fig. 5 shows the schematic of an input rectifier that uses a
Boost converter for current wave-shaping. The MOSFET M1
is controlled by a hysteresis band PWM controller which
switches the MOSFET on when the current in the inductor L1
falls below the lower limit of the reference band and turns the
MOSFET off when the current is exceeding the upper limit of
the reference band. Through the switch-mode operation, the
circuit is very efficient since the MOSFET is alternating
between two low loss states (fully on – near zero voltage; fully
off – zero current).
Fig. 2. LTspice schematic of the Pre-Charge sub-circuit

Fig. 3. Waveforms of the voltage on the DC output capacitor C1 (upper

trace) and AC input current (lower trace) of the circuit in Figure 1.

Fig. 5. Input rectifier with Boost converter for input wave-shaping.

B. PWM Modulator
The custom part in the lower left side with the PWM
symbol in Fig. 5 contains the sub-circuit for the PWM
modulator. The schematic for this sub-circuit is shown in Fig.
6. The design of this circuit is the most important detail of the
proper operation of the PFC Boost converter. The PWM output
voltage going to the Gate of the MOSFET is ±15V relative to
the Source. The positive voltage is used to turn the MOSFET
Fig. 4. Frequency spectrum of the AC input current (lower trace) in Figure 3. on while the negative voltage is used to quickly turn it off and
keep it turned off. The voltage source Dr1 is boosting the
B. Using a Boost converter for input current wave shaping voltage output from the PWM source PWM1 from ±1V to
±15V. The reference for the rectified sinewave is supplied by
In the following we are examining the use of a Boost the voltage source Ref1. Ref2 adds or subtracts a hysteresis
converter for active wave shaping of the current drawn from component of 0.05 (5%) in this example by adding a fraction
the AC input source. For this purpose we are controlling the of the PWM voltage from PWM1 to Ref1 to arrive at
MOSFET transistor of the Boost converter such that the current Hyst_Ref. The source PWM1 compares this modified
drawn from the rectifier represents a rectified sinusoid. In order reference wave with the actual current level in the Boost
to accomplish this, we are using the waveform of the input inductor and derives a PWM switching signal using a soft
voltage as a template and place an upper and lower boundary comparator technique described in [5]. This technique
around this waveform. To keep the current in the band around produces a steep PWM signal without undefined slope
the reference value we turn on the MOSFET if the current falls transitions. The low-pass filter Rg1, C1 condition the signal
below the lower boundary and turn it off if it goes above the applied to the Gate of the MOSFET transistor.
upper limit.

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 transitions accurately. However using an averaged PWM
model as described in [6] that replaces the PWM signal at the
gate of the MOSFET with an average duty cycle signal can
help speed up the simulation easily by a factor of 100.

A. Comparison of Switch-Mode and Averaged Models

Fig. 9 shows the schematic for running a comparison of the
switch-mode model for the Boost converter with the Boost
converter model with the time-averaged PWM switch. To
generate the proper duty cycle signal for the time-averaged
switch model, we are using a PI-controller behind an error
Fig. 6. Schematic of the sub-circuit for the Hysteresis PWM modulator. signal derived from comparing the reference current with the
current in inductor L2. We are also comparing this signal with
C. Waveforms the low-pass filtered gate control signal for MOSFET M1.
Fig. 7 below shows traces of the voltage at the output
capacitor C1 in Fig. 5 in the upper pane and traces of the
output current from the rectifier in the lower pane. The
waveform in the lower pane (green) also shows the reference
value of the current in red color. The hysteresis band is clearly
visible.

Fig. 7. Waveforms of Voltages & Currents of the PFC Boost converter.

D. Harmonic content of the current in the Boost PFC Fig. 9. Comparison of switch-mode and time averaged Boost converters.
converter.
B. Sub-Circuit for Time Averaged Models
Fig. 8 shows the spectral purity of the AC input current of
the Boost converter confirming the proper operation of this A schematic for the time-averaged PWM switch is shown
circuit in reducing harmonics and improving the power factor. in Fig. 10. This circuit basically represents the model of an
ideal transformer where the duty-cycle is the turns-ratio. As
shown in [6], this time-averaged switch can be used in a
number of switch model DC-DC converters such as Buck,
Boost, Buck-Boost etc.

Fig. 8. Frequency spectrum of the AC input current (lower trace) in Fig. 7.

IV. USING TIME-AVERAGED MODELS

The Boost converter circuit shown in Fig. 5 uses a
MOSFET transistor that is switching at a frequency that is
much higher than the fundamental frequency of the input
current (60 Hz). Therefore the simulation has to proceed at a
small time-step (100 ns in our example) to track the PWM - Fig. 10. Sub_circuit for time averaged PWM switch

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 C. Results for Switch-Mode and Time-Averaged Simulations The traces in the bottom of Fig. 11 represent the currents in
the input inductors of both Boost converters. Both waveforms
Fig. 11 shows the waveforms of the simulation of the match very closely. The input current of the converter with the
two boost converters shown in Fig. 9. Running the two time-averaged switch model is visibly in the very center of the
circuits simultaneously allows the direct comparison of the (Green) current waveform of the switch-mode converter.
results and the validation of the model with the time-averaged
switc model against the results from the switch-mode model.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have shown simulations of Boost
converters used to draw a nearly sinusoidal input current from
a AC source and thus avoiding harmonics. This will result in a
power factor which is close to unity. We compared a
conventional model that uses a cycle-by-cycle switching
approach with a model using a time-averaged switch. We
found that the results of both models agree very closely. Since
there are no high frequency switching transitions that need to
be followed, the model with the time-averaged switch can run
orders of magnitude faster in a stand-alone simulation. This
model can also be used in a frequency domain simulation with
the duty cycle input being an analog control variable. The basic
model of the time averaged switch shown in Fig. 10 is further
expanded by Ned Mohan as a basic pole of a power electronics
converter suitable for a wide variety of applications. This work
is shown in [7].
Fig. 11. Results for switch mode and time-averaged Boost converters.
REFERENCES
The traces in the top pane of the plot shown in Fig. 11
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averaged circuit. The fuzzy gray trace is the filtered duty-cycle Norwood, MA 02062-9106, http://www.analog.com/en/design-
signal applied to the MOSFET. The second order filter circuit center/design-tools-and-calculators/ltspice-simulator.html
in the center of Figure 9 is extracting this signal from the Gate [2] IEEE Standard 519, IEEE Recommended Practice and Requirements for
drive signal of the MOSFET. In this circuit, the depended Harmonic Control in Electric Power Systems, 2014
edition, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6826459/
voltage source named Duty first strips off the negative portion
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