Dead-time effect quantification on total harmonic distortion in MOSFET-based single-phase full-bridge inverter: A parametric simulation study
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Since Undeland first formalised the dead-time distortion problem in voltage-source inverters nearly five decades ago, hundreds of compensation techniques have been proposed, yet a systematic parametric map linking dead-time duration, switching frequency, and load power factor to the resulting total harmonic distortion remains unavailable for the single-phase full-bridge topology that dominates low-power photovoltaic micro-inverters and uninterruptible power supplies. This research fills that gap through a MATLAB-Simulink parametric sweep of a MOSFET-based single-phase H-bridge inverter, varying the dead-time from 0.5 µs to 5.0 µs in ten steps at three switching frequencies (10 kHz, 20 kHz, and 50 kHz) and three power-factor settings (unity, 0.85 lagging, and 0.70 lagging). The simulation model included MOSFET on-resistance, body-diode forward voltage, and parasitic output capacitance extracted from the IRF540N datasheet, ensuring that the distortion figures reflect realistic semiconductor behaviour rather than idealised switch models. At 10 kHz switching and 5.0 µs dead-time, the THD reached 12.38%, dominated by the third harmonic at 8.24% of the fundamental. Increasing the switching frequency to 50 kHz under the same dead-time reduced the THD to 5.13%, confirming the well-known inverse relationship but quantifying it with a precision absent from the existing literature. A linear regression fitted to the 30-point dataset yielded THD = 2.476 × t_d / T_sw (R² = 0.9987), where t_d is the dead-time duration and T_sw the switching period, providing designers with a single-equation estimator. The data also showed that lagging power factor suppresses odd-harmonic content at low dead-times but amplifies it beyond 3 µs, a crossover effect not previously reported in closed form. These results give inverter designers an empirical design chart and a validated equation for budgeting dead-time-induced THD in the early stages of power-stage selection.
Author: Hafizah Muniandy
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7213310943