RESUMEN
Piezoelectric ceramic actuators utilize an inverse piezoelectric effect to generate high-frequency vibration energy and are widely used in ultrasonic energy conversion circuits. This paper presents a novel drive circuit with input-current shaping (ICS) and soft-switching features which consists of a front AC-DC full-wave bridge rectifier and a rear DC-AC circuit combining a stacked boost converter and a half-bridge resonant inverter for driving a piezoelectric ceramic actuator. To enable ICS functionality in the proposed drive circuit, the inductor of the stacked boost converter sub-circuit is designed to operate in boundary-conduction mode (BCM). In order to allow the two power switches in the proposed drive circuit to achieve zero-voltage switching (ZVS) characteristics, the resonant circuit of the half-bridge resonant inverter sub-circuit is designed as an inductive load. In this paper, a prototype drive circuit for providing piezoelectric ceramic actuators was successfully implemented. Experimental results tested at 110 V input utility voltage show that high power factor (PF > 0.97), low input current total harmonic distortion (THD < 16%), and ZVS characteristics of the power switch were achieved in the prototype drive circuit.
RESUMEN
This paper proposes a novel and cost-effective drive circuit for supplying a piezoelectric ceramic actuator, which combines a dual boost AC-DC converter with a coupled inductor and a half-bridge resonant DC-AC inverter into a single-stage architecture with power-factor-correction (PFC) and soft-switching characteristics. The coupled inductor of the dual boost AC-DC converter sub-circuit is designed to work in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM), so the PFC function can be realized in the proposed drive circuit. The resonant tank of the half-bridge resonant inverter sub-circuit is designed as an inductive load, so that the two power switches in the presented drive circuit can achieve zero-voltage switching (ZVS) characteristics. A 50 W-rated prototype drive circuit providing a piezoelectric ceramic actuator has been successfully implemented in this paper. From the experimental results at 110 V input utility-line voltage, the drive circuit has the characteristics of high power factor and low input current total-harmonic-distortion factor, and two power switches have ZVS characteristics. Therefore, satisfactory outcomes from measured results prove the function of the proposed drive circuit.