Table of Content
- Snubber Circuit Diagram
- Snubber Circuit Calculation
- How to Choose snubber capacitor and Resistor
snubber circuit

Snubber Circuit Calculation
Snubber circuit for MOSFET
In the Snubber circuit, the RC series network is used to dampen the ringing generated by the circuit’s stray capacitance and inductance. Cumulative capacitance and inductance including inductive loads such as relay or solenoid coil produce a resonance frequency ringing. Due to inductance, a change in the load current has a high kick-back ringing voltage at the resonance frequency. The following formula can calculate ringing frequency

Here f0 is ringing frequency without adding a snubber capacitor. C is stray capacitance. And L is parasitic inductance is load is inductive then load inductance should be added. The stray capacitance and stray inductance are usually very low. So, the ringing frequency is high. At high-frequency di/dt is high so the initial ringing amplitude is very high.

To reduce the di/dt we decrease f0 by adding a capacitor in parallel with switching element. When thyristor goes off from conduction. Stored magnetic energy in inductive load is discharged through an infinite circuit impedance. Which generate a high voltage spike and parasitic capacitance initiate ringing. If we add a resistance and a capacitor in thyristor’s parallel. The new ringing frequency after adding a capacitor into circuit is fs. Cs is snubber capacitor.

How to calculate snubber resistor?
Resistor in snubber acts as the damping element. Damping factor can be determined by following formula

ζ is damping factor were Rs is snubber resistor. L and C are final values after adding snubber capacitance. However sometimes only Rs is enough to damp unwanted ringing. But, mostly in MOSFET bridge circuits, resistance passes a continues current in off condition which is unwanted. here capacitance is used to block DC current and lower the ringing frequency.
A good damping factor can be determined by viewing a graphical example of step response of a RLC circuit.

Damping factor 0.7 and 1 are suitable values for a snubber. It is over damping when damping factor value is 2. If we consider ζ = 1.

Snubber capacitor?
Now we have Rs value for RC snubber circuit from above equation. And we can calculate Cs from critical frequency of RC circuit equation.

To find snubber capacitance Cs value from the equation given under. By f0 and Rs values

Assume for optimal design fc = f0 we can choose different frequencies than the critical frequency as per dedicated application.
Choosing Capacitor and Resistance values
only standard values of Capacitors and resistors are available commercially. For the snubber circuit, there is no need to be exact values. we can use round-about standard values of capacitors and resistors in the snubber circuit.
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[…] circuits are classified as dissipative and non-dissipative. The most commonly useddissipative snubber is the Resistor-Capacitor (RC) snubber. It consists of a capacitor and a resistorin series […]