Magnetic Design of Flyback Type Snubber for IGCT Applications

10kV IGCT has been recently developed and has the potential to push wind turbine systems to higher power and voltage rating. Converters employing IGCTs need snubber and OVP circuit to limit the rate of current's rising and peak over voltage across IGCT during turn on and off state, respectively. The conventional RCD snubber which is used in such power converter dissipates a significant amount of power. In order to reduce the amount of energy lost by conventional RCD snubber, this paper proposes flyback type snubber comprising two coils wound on a magnetic core. The flyback snubber not only meets all of the IGCTs characteristics during on and off-state but also significantly saves the power loss. Modern magnetic model using permeance-capacitance analogy leads to more accurate loss analysis of flyback type di/dt snubber circuit in 3-level NPC type back-to-back VSC. In turns, the comparison between conventional and flyback type snubber yield the effectiveness of proposed snubber in wind turbine systems.