• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.535-540
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• 2022

DC-link capacitors are reliability-critical components in a photovoltaic (PV) inverter. Typically, the lifetime of a DC-link capacitor is evaluated by considering the voltage and hot-spot temperature of the capacitor under the specific operating condition of the PV inverter. However, the output of the PV inverter is determined by solar irradiation and ambient temperature, which vary with the seasons; accordingly, the hot-spot temperature of the capacitor also changes. Therefore, the mission profile of the PV system should be considered to effectively evaluate the reliability of the DC-link capacitor. In this study, the reliability of the DC-link capacitor of a three-level NPC inverter is comparatively analyzed with and without considering the mission profiles of the PV system, where two mission profiles recorded in Arizona and Iza are considered. The accumulated damage of the DC-link capacitor is calculated based on the lifetime model by analyzing its thermal loading. Afterward, a reliability evaluation of the DC-link capacitor is performed at the component level and then at the system level by considering all capacitors by means of Monte Carlo analysis. Results reveal the importance of performing a mission-profile-based reliability evaluation during the design of high-reliability PV inverters to achieve the target reliability performance.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1067-1074
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• 2018

This paper presents a control method for variable-speed motor drives that do not use a DC-link electrolytic capacitor. The proposed circuit consists of a power factor correction converter for boosting the DC-link voltage, an inverter for driving the motor, and a small DC-link film capacitor. By employing a small DC-link capacitor, the proposed circuit that is small, and a low cost and weight are achieved. However, because the DC-link voltage varies periodically, the control of the circuit is more difficult than that of the conventional method. Using the proposed control method, an inverter can be controlled reliably even when the capacitance of the DC-link capacitor is very small. Experiments are performed using a 1.5-kW inverter with a $20-{\mu}F$ DC-link capacitor, and the experimental results are analyzed thoroughly.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2022

This paper proposes a method for selecting the capacitance of DC-link capacitors of inverters. In general, the DC-link capacitance of the inverter system must be considered for DC-link voltage, ripple current, switching frequency, ripple voltage, and pulse-width modulation techniques. Therefore, the appropriate capacitance can be determined by finding the rms and peak values of the ripple current of the capacitor. In this paper, the process of extracting the ripple current of DC-link capacitor is described in detail. In addition, the simple method for finding DC-link capacitor capacitance using the result value is presented through the simulations.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.117-122
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• 2018

A large-capacity three-phase system air conditioner recently includes an inverter circuit to reduce power consumption. The inverter circuit uses a DC voltage that comes from DC-link power capacitor with the function of rectifying, which means AC voltage to DC voltage using a diode. An electrolytic capacitor is generally used to satisfy the voltage ripple and current ripple conditions of a DC-link power capacitor used for rectifying. Reducing the capacitance of the capacitor decreases the size, weight, and cost of the circuit. This paper proposes an algorithm to reduce the input ripple current by combining the minimum point estimation phase locked loop (PLL) phase control and the average voltage d axis current control technique. When this algorithm was used, the input ripple current decreased by almost 90%. The current ripple of the DC-link capacitor decreased due to the decrease in input ripple current. The capacitor capacity can be reduced but the electrolytic capacitor has a heat generation problem and life-time limitations because of its large equivalent series resistance (ESR). This paper proposes a method to select a film capacitor considering the current ripple at DC-link stage instead of an electrolytic capacitor. The capacitance was selected considering the voltage limitation, RMS (Root Mean Square) current capacity, and RMS current frequency analysis. A $1680{\mu}F$ electrolytic capacitor can be reduced to a $20{\mu}F$ film capacitor, which has the benefit of size, weight and cost. These results were verified by motor operation.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1928-1938
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• 2016

The three-phase four-wire shunt active power filter (APF) is an effective method to solve the harmonic problem in three-phase four-wire power systems. In addition, it has two possible topologies, a four-leg inverter and a three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor. There are some studies investigating DC-link voltage control in three-phase four-wire APFs. However, when compared to the four-leg inverter topology, maintaining the balance between the DC-link upper and lower capacitor voltages becomes a unique problem in the three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor topology, and previous studies seldom pay attention to this fact. In this paper, the influence of the balance between the two DC-link voltages on the compensation performance, and the influence of the voltage balance controller on the compensation performance, are analyzed. To achieve the balance between the two DC-link capacitor voltages, and to avoid the adverse effect the voltage balance controller has on the APF compensation performance, a new DC-link voltage balance control strategy for the three-phase four-wire split-capacitor APF is proposed. Representative simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the analysis and the proposed DC-link voltage balance control strategy.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.378-383
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• 2010

Due to the large capacity and low cost, DC link electrolytic capacitors with of energy storage and voltage regulation are used for almost all types of power converter as the DC/AC inverter or DC/DC converter. Electrolytic capacitor, which is the most of the time affected by the aging effect, plays very important role for the power converter system quality and reliability. Therefore, this paper proposes a simple method to estimate the capacitance variation of an electrolytic capacitor in order to analyze the internal characteristic decrease and worn-out state of an electrolytic capacitor. Simulation results by using capacitor storage energy computation show the validity of the proposed capacitance estimation method.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.94-98
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• 2011

Electrolytic power capacitors today form essential components for virtually any power electronic system such as DC/DC converter or UPS. Frequently, electrolytic capacitors for DC link voltage smoothing are the key components which determine the life cycle of the whole unit and often are responsible for converter breakdown failures. In this paper, ethernet-based remote diagnosis system for DC voltage smoothing capacitor using DSP control board is developed. To estimate the status of the capacitor, the equivalent series resistor(ESR) of the component has to be determined. The ESR detection scheme is based on the determination of the capacitor ripple power losses calculated from DC link voltage/current measurement. Experimental results show the veridity and reliability of the proposed ethernet-based remote on-line capacitor diagnosis system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2010

This paper presents a bidirectional DC-DC converter suitable for low-voltage super capacitor-based electric energy storage systems. The DC-DC converter presented here consists of a full-bridge circuit and a current-fed push-pull circuit with a high frequency (HF) transformer-link. In order to reduce the device-conduction losses due to the large current of the super capacitor as well as unnecessary ringing, synchronous rectification is employed in the super capacitor-charging mode. A wide range of voltage regulation between the battery and the super capacitor can be realized by employing a Phase-Shifting (PS) Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) scheme in the full-bridge circuit for the super capacitor charging mode as well as the overlapping PWM scheme of the gate signals to the active power devices in the push-pull circuit for the super capacitor discharging mode. Essential performance of the bidirectional DC-DC converter is demonstrated with simulation and experiment results, and the practical effectiveness of the DC-DC converter is discussed.

• 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.