• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1725-1734
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• 2016

This paper presents a novel seven-level (7L) voltage source converter for high-power medium-voltage applications. The proposed topology is an H-bridge connection of two nested neutral-point clamped (NNPC) converters and is referred to as an HNNPC converter. This converter exhibits advantageous features, such as operating over a wide range of output voltages, particularly for 10-15 kV applications, without the need to connect power semiconductors in series; high-quality output voltage; and fewer components relative to other classic seven-level topologies. A novel sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique is also developed for the proposed 7L-HNNPC converter to control flying capacitor voltages. One of the main features of the control strategy is the independent application of control to each arm of the converter to significantly reduce the complexity of the controller. The performance of the proposed converter is studied under different operating conditions via MATLAB/Simulink simulation, and its feasibility is evaluated experimentally on a scaled-down prototype converter.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.78-82
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• 2014

Power Transformers with more than one secondary winding are not uncommon in industrial applications. But new classes of applications where very large number of independent secondaries are used are becoming popular in controlled converters for medium and high voltage applications. Cascade H-bridge medium voltage drives and Pulse Step Modulation (PSM) based high voltage power supplies are such applications. Regulated high voltage power supplies (Fig. 1) with 35-100 kV, 5-10 MW output range with very fast dynamics (${\mu}S$ order) uses such transformers. Such power supplies are widely used in fusion research. Here series connection of isolated voltage sources with conventional switching semiconductor devices is achieved by large number of separate transformers or by single unit of multi-secondary transformer. Naturally, a transformer having numbers of secondary windings (~40) on single core is the preferred solution due to space and cost considerations. For design and simulation analysis of such a power supply, the model of a multi-secondary transformer poses special problem to any circuit analysis software as many simulation softwares provide transformer models with limited number (3-6) of secondary windings. Multi-Secondary transformer models with 3 different schemes are available. A comparison of test results from a practical Multi-secondary transformer with a simulation model using magnetic component is found to describe the behavior closer to observed test results. Earlier models assumed magnetising inductance in a linear loss less core model although in actual it is saturable core made-up of CRGO steel laminations. This article discusses a more detailed representation of flux coupled magnetic model with saturable core properties to simulate actual transformers very close to its observed parameters in test and actual usage.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.514-521
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• 2009

This paper deals with a new overvoltage snubber for a diode-clamped 3-level IGBT inverter. Usually most power converters use snubber circuits to protect the switching devices from voltage spike. However, it is difficult for the diode-clamped multi-level converter to be protected from voltage spike with overvoltage snubber since the series connection of the switching devices. To solve the problem the characteristic of a overvoltage snubber for a DC-DC converter is analyzed, and a new snubber for a diode clamped 3-level inverter is proposed. The performance of the proposed snubber is verified through experiments.