Numerical and experimental study of instability phenomena of a boost PFC converter

Boost PFC converter with average-current-mode control is studied from the bifurcation viewpoint. Boost PFC converter is a nonlinear circuit due to the multiplier use and the large change in the duty cycle. This nonlinearity produces bifurcations and chaos when parameters are varied. The classical PFC design is based on stable periodic orbit which has desired characteristics. In this paper, the main bifurcations which may undergo this orbit, when the parameters of the circuit change, are described and the region of these instability phenomena of the converter are delimited which is of practical interest for engineering design. Linear analysis can not detect or prove these instability phenomena. Then, these phenomena are detected by using a prototype design and confirmed by using a special numerical program resulting in a good agreement between them.