Electronic – Buck converter step response

buckltspicepower electronics

I am simulating a current step in a buck converter with a resistive load that I designed. I am measuring the response while stepping the current up from 5A to 10A and stepping the current down from 10A to 5A.

It appears that the settling time is around double in the current step down scenario (~6ms) in comparison to the step up scenario (~3ms). Intuitively, I would've expected the settling time to be the same in both scenarios. Does anybody know why is this happening? Thanks.

The circuit:

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Inductor current and output voltage in a step up from 5A to 10A:

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Inductor current and output voltage in a step down from 10A to 5A:

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Best Answer

The characteristics of a passive network like this are very much dependent on the load impedance it sees. Obviously, the step-up scenario has half the load impedance of the step-down scenario, and this provides greater damping (lower "Q").

If your converter had feedback and dynamic control of the switching duty cycle, you could pretty much eliminate these effects.