Prediction of EMI Filter Attenuation in Power-Electronic Converters via Circuit Simulation

This article investigates the conducted-emission (CE) suppression characteristics of electromagnetic interference (EMI) filters used in power-electronic equipment by time-domain circuit simulation. An operational definition of insertion attenuation is introduced by comparing the CE in the absence and in the presence of the EMI filter. For the sake of exemplification, the analysis focuses on switched-mode dc-dc converters. It is shown that the EMI-filter attenuation behaves differently from the standard insertion loss (IL) and exhibits peculiar properties in these circuits. Namely, its response is known at discrete frequencies where the converter generates CE and may strongly depend on the harmonic index so to jump between quite different levels from a harmonic component to the next one, with a pseudoperiodic behavior, which can be related to the duty cycle. This effect is caused by circuit nonlinearity and is partially mitigated if the simulation accounts for two practically relevant aspects: random instability of the duty cycle and resolution bandwidth of the EMI receiver. The dependence of the common-mode (CM) and differential-mode attenuations on the loading conditions and duty cycle is analyzed, and it is shown that linear IL models provide reasonable predictions of CM attenuation only. Finally, experimental evidence of the unveiled phenomena is presented.