New Resonant AC Link Snubber-Assisted Three-Phase Soft-Switching PWM Inverter and Its Comparative Characteristics Evaluations

This paper presents a novel prototype of three-phase voltage source type zero voltage soft-switching inverter with the auxiliary resonant snubbers suitable for high-power applications with IGBT power module packages in order to reduce their switching power losses as well as electromagnetic conductive and radiative noises. A proposed single inductor-assisted resonant AC link snubber circuit topology as one of some auxiliary resonant commutation snubbers developed previously to achieve the zero voltage soft-switching (ZVS) for the three-phase voltage source type sinewave PWM inverter operating under the instantaneous space voltage vector modulation is originally demonstrated as compared with the other types of resonant AC link snubber circuit topologies. In addition to this, its operation principle and unique features are described in this paper. Furthermore, the practical basic operating performances of the new conceptual instantaneous space voltage vector modulation resonant AC link snubber-assisted three-phase voltage source type soft-switching PWM inverter using IGBT power module packages are evaluated and discussed on the basis of switching voltage and current waveforms, output line to line voltage quality, power loss analysis, actual power conversion efficiency and electromagnetic conductive and radiative noises from an experimental point of view, comparing with those of conventional three-phase voltage source hard-switching PWM inverter using IGBT power modules.