• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2013

Electrolytic capacitors used for smoothing DC link voltage is one of the major root causes of fault in power electronic system. The aging of aluminum electrolytic capacitors is expressed by the increase of their equivalent series resistance (ESR) and the reduction of their capacitance. Thus, the proposed technique in this paper is to measure capacitance, by comparing energy loss of DC link capacitors with stator resistor in electric machine. Condition of DC link capacitors can be estimated from the capacitance decrease rate between initial and aged capacitors. The results show that the proposed technique provides an easy, widely applicable and simple low cost solution for detecting dc link capacitor degradation.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.370-371
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• 2011

This paper presents a control algorithm that minimizes the DC-link capacitance by decreasing the capacitor current. The capacitor current can be nullified by a feedback compensation term which is calculated from the power balance in the AC/DC converter. As a result, voltage variation in the DC-link is reduced further, which makes a large reduction in the size of DC-link capacitors which are expensive and have limitations in life time. Simulations are performed with two 80uF DC-link capacitors, which can be replaced by film capacitors.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.291-296
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• 2022

Capacitor is one of the reliability-critical components in power converters. The lifetime of the capacitor decreases as the operating temperature increases, and power losses caused by capacitor current are the main cause of the capacitor temperature increase. Therefore, various studies are being conducted to improve the lifetime of the capacitor by reducing the current of DC-link capacitors. In this study, pulse width modulation methods proposed for improving the lifetime of DC-link capacitors of the three-level NPC inverter are comparatively analyzed. The lifetime evaluation of the DC-link capacitor under different modulation methods is performed at component level first and then system level by considering all capacitors by applying Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, their effects on the efficiency and THD of the output current are also considered.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.544-551
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• 2011

This paper presents the circuit arrangement and effective control method of regenerative energy storage system for an electric vehicle using super-capacitors as the braking energy storage element. A bi-directional controlled current flow of the DC-DC converters with the capacitor bank is connected in parallel with battery, and is controlled so that the whole of the braking energy is effectively absorbed into the capacitors and released back to the electric motor upon acceleration. The converter needs the series-parallel switching circuit for making the best use of the series capacitors and for limiting the step-up ratio of the boost converter. The proposed methods are verified by computer simulation and experimental set-up. They are usefully applied to the electric vehicles such as green cars, electric motorcycles, bike, etc which are power- supplied by the electric batteries.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1133-1141
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• 2019

In this paper, a capacitors energy strategy based Cascaded H-bridge Converter (CHBC) for steady DC link voltage is proposed, which allow the CHBC to work while DC power fails. The topology of the CHBC is analyzed to construct the proposed strategy. The capacitors energy strategy is deduced based on the principle that the DC link voltage should be steady, the switch state should be smooth and the switch frequency should be normal. Experiments based on a three-module prototype, including static experiment, start experiment and step change experiment, proves the correctness of the strategy. They also verified the excellent fault tolerance ability and good dynamic performance of the proposed strategy.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.48 no.7
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• pp.384-390
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• 1999

This paper describes a new ac-to-dc power converter using a multilevel converter. A conventional multilevel ac-to-dc converter has large output dc filter capacitors. When a short circuit happens in a load, the stored energy in the capacitors should be discharged through the load with a high short circuit current. The high current may cause considerable damage to the capacitors and the load. The output dc capacitors of the proposed converter do not discharge even under load short circuit condition. In the case of a load short circuit, the capacitors become a floating state immediately and remain in the state. Then the stored capacitor energy is supplied to the load again as soon as the short circuit has been cleared. Therefore, the rising time of the load voltage can be significantly reduced. This feature satisfies the requirement of a power supply for a load with frequent short circuits. The proposed converter has the characteristics of a simplified structure, a reduced cost, weight, and volume compared with conventional power supplies with frequent output short circuits. Experimental results are presented to verify the usefulness of the proposed converter.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.391-396
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• 2009

In this paper, a control algorithm for DC-Link voltage unbalancing compensation of a four-switch inverter for a three-phase BLDC motor drive is proposed. Compared with a conventional six-switch inverter, the split source of the four-switch inverter can be obtained by splitting DC-link capacitor into two capacitors to drive the three phase BLDC motor. The voltages across each of two capacitors are not always equal in steady state because of the unbalance in the impedance of the DC-link capacitors $C_1$ and $C_2$ or the variable current flowed into the capacitor's neutral point in motor control. Despite the unbalance, if the BLDC motor may be run for a long time the voltage across one of the capacitors is more increased. So the unbalance in the capacitors voltages will be accelerated. As a result, The current ripple and torque ripple is increased due to the fluctuation of input current which flows into 3-phase BLDC motor. According to that, the vibration of motor will be increased and the whole system will be instable. This paper presents a control algorithm for DC-Link voltage unbalancing compensation. The sampling from the voltages across each of two capacitors is used to perform the voltage control of DC-Link by using the feedforward controller.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.116-128
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• 2018

Conventionally, in order to reduce the ac components of the dc-link capacitors of the two-level Half-Bridge Voltage Source Inverter (HB-VSI), high dc-link capacitances are required. This necessitates the employment of short-lifetime and bulky electrolytic capacitors. In this paper, an analysis for the performance of low dc-link capacitances-based HB-VSI is presented to elucidate its ability to generate an enhanced fundamental output voltage magnitude without increasing the voltage rating of the involved switches. This feature is constrained by the load displacement factor. The introduced enhancement is due to the ac components of the capacitors' voltages. The presented approach can be employed for multi-phase systems through using multi single-phase HB-VSI(s). Mathematical analysis of the proposed approach is presented in this paper. To ensure a successful operation of the proposed approach, a closed loop current controller is examined. An expression for the critical dc-link capacitance, which is the lowest dc-link capacitance that can be employed for unipolar capacitors' voltages, is derived. Finally, simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed claims.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.120-126
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• 2021

DC-link capacitors are one of the main components in two-level three-phase voltage source inverters (VSIs); they provide the pulsating input current and stabilize the vacillating DC-link voltage. Ideally, the larger the capacitance of DC-link capacitors, the better the DC-link voltage stabilizes. However, high capacitance increases the cost and decreases the power density of VSI systems. Therefore, the capacitance should be chosen carefully on the basis of the DC-link voltage ripple requirement. However, the DC-link voltage ripple is dependent on the pulse-width modulation (PWM) strategy. This study especially presents a DC-link voltage ripple analysis when the minimum loss discontinuous PWM strategy is applied. Furthermore, an equation for the selection of the minimum capacitance of DC-link capacitors is proposed. Experimental results with R-L loads are also provided to verify the effectiveness of the presented analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.59-66
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• 2013

This paper proposes a new voltage reference generation method for Four-Switch Inverters(FSI) with compensation of the neutral DC-link voltage variation. Since FSIs have the split DC-link causing the inherent problem of voltage fluctuations in the upper and lower capacitors, it is required to take account the voltage difference between the top and bottom capacitors. In this paper, to reduce the effect by the voltage variation, reference voltages are modified by adding compensation voltages proportional to the voltage difference between upper and lower capacitors. Simulation results showing control performance of induction and permanent magnet motors demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.