• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제18권2호
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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.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제61권4호
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• pp.186-191
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• 2012

DC Bus Electrolytic capacitors have been widely used in power conversion system because they can achieve high capacitance and voltage ratings with volumetric efficiency and low cost. This type of capacitors have been traditionally used for filtering, voltage smoothing, by-pass and other many applications in power conversion circuits requiring a cost effective and volumetric efficiency components. Unfortunately, electrolytic capacitors are some of the weakest components in power electronic converter. Many papers have proposed different methods or algorithms to determinate the ESR and/or capacitance C for fault diagnosis of the electrolytic capacitor. However, both ESR and C vary with frequency and temperature. Accurate knowledge of both values at the capacitors operating conditions is essential to achieve the best reference data of fault judgement. According to parameter analysis, the capacitance increases with temperature and the ESR decreases. Higher frequencies make the ESR and C to decrease. Analysis results show that the proposed electrolytic capacitor parameter estimation technique can be applied to reference signal of capacitor diagnosis systems successfully.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제26권6호
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• pp.13-19
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to examine the cause of damage to electrolytic capacitors and to present the heat generation mechanism in order to prevent the occurrence of similar problems. From the analysis results of electrolytic capacitors collected from accident sites, the fire causing area can be limited to the primary power supply for the initial accident. From the tests performed by applying overvoltage, surge, etc., it is thought that the fuse, varistor, etc., are not directly related to the accidents that occurred. The analysis of the characteristics using a switching regulator showed that the charge and discharge characteristics fell short of standard values. In addition, it is thought that heated electrolytic capacitors caused thermal stress to nearby resistances, elements, etc. It can be seen that the heat generation is governed by the over-ripple current, application of AC overvoltage, surge input, internal temperature increase, defective airtightness, etc. Therefore, when designing an electrolytic capacitor, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the correct polarity arrangement, appropriate voltage application, correct connection of equivalent series resistance(ESR) and equivalent series inductance(SEL), rapid charge and discharge control, sufficient margin of dielectric tangent, etc.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.358-365
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• 2012

A new third harmonic injection circuit for light-emitting diode (LED) drivers is proposed to eliminate electrolytic capacitors and thereby extend the lifetime of LED drivers. When a third harmonic current is injected to the input current of the LED driver, the required capacitance of the driver can be reduced. The proposed circuit can control an injection ratio and has simple circuitry. The synchronous third harmonic is generated by a phase locked loop (PLL), a 1/3 counter, and op-amps and applied to a power factor correction circuit. Thus, the storage capacitor can install film capacitors instead of the electrolytic capacitor. The value of storage capacitance can be reduced to 78% compared to an input power factor of 100%. The proposed circuit is applied to the 80W prototype LED driver to experimentally verify the performances.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제58권2호
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• pp.207-213
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• 2009

Electrolytic capacitors have been widely used in power electronics system because of the features of large capacitance, small size, high-voltage, and low-cost. Electrolytic capacitors, which is most of the time affected by aging effect, plays a very important role for the power electronics system quality and reliability. Therefore it is important to estimate the parameter of an electrolytic capacitor to predict the failure. This paper proposed a novel fault diagnosis method of an electrolytic capacitor used for voltage smoothing in boost DC converter. The equivalent series resistance(ESR) of electrolytic capacitor estimated from FFT result of filtered waveform of capacitor voltage/current. Main advantage of the proposed method include circuit simplicity and easy implementation. Simulation and experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed method.

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제61권11호
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• pp.1625-1633
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• 2012

In the lighting industry, a Lighting Emitting Diode (LED) is increasingly used because of many advantages and a eco-friendly product comparing with the conventional lighting. However, the LED lighting has to include various AC/DC converters because the direct current is used for the LED lighting. Among a lot of power converters, the flyback converter is widely used for the LED lighting and includes some electrolytic capacitors for the voltage regulation. But the electrolytic capacitor has shorter lifetime than the LED element. It makes the expected life-time of the converter having the electrolytic capacitor shorter than the LED element. This paper proposes the single-stage PFC flyback converter without electrolytic capacitors. To verify the performance of the proposed converter, simulated and experimental works were carried out.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제58권4호
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• pp.483-489
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• 2009

Electrolytic capacitors are used in variety of equipments as smoothening element of the power converters because it has high capacitance for its size and low price. Electrolytic capacitors, which is most of the time affected by aging effect, plays a very important role for the power electronics system quality and reliability. Therefore it is important to estimate the parameter of an electrolytic capacitor to predict the failure. This objective of this paper is to propose a new method to detect the rise of equivalent series resistor(ESR) in order to realize the online failure prediction of electrolytic capacitor for DC output filter of power converter. The ESR of electrolytic capacitor estimated from RMS result of filtered waveform(BPF) of the ripple capacitor voltage/current. Therefore, the preposed online failure prediction method has the merits of easy ESR computation and circuit simplicity. Simulation and experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed on-line method.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제59권4호
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• pp.372-376
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• 2010

Electrolytic capacitors have been widely used in power electronics system because of the features of large capacitance, small size, high-voltage, and low-cost. Electrolytic capacitors, which is most of the time affected by aging effect, plays a very important role for the power electronics system quality and reliability. Therefore it is important to estimate the parameter of an electrolytic capacitor to predict the failure. The estimation of the equivalent series resistance(ESR) is important parameter in life condition monitoring of electrolytic capacitor. This paper proposes a simple technique to measure the ESR of an electrolytic capacitor. This method uses a switching DC/DC boost converter to measure the DC Bus capacitor ESR of power converter. Main advantage of the proposed method is very simple in technique, consumes very little time and requires only simple instruments. Simulation results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed method.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제66권4호
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• pp.213-218
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• 2017

The DC electrolytic capacitor for DC-link of power converter is widely used in various power electronic circuits and system application. Its functions include, DC Bus voltage stabilization, conduction of ripple current due to switching events, voltage smoothing, etc. Unfortunately, DC electrolytic capacitors are some of the weakest components in power electronics converters. Many papers have proposed different algorithms or diagnosis method to determinate the ESR and tan ${\delta}$ capacitance C for fault alarm system of the electrolytic capacitor. However, both ESR vary with frequency and temperature. Accurate knowledge of both parameters at the capacitors operating conditions is essential to achieve the best reference data of fault alarm. According to parameter analysis, the capacitance increases with temperature and the initial ESR decreases. Higher frequencies make the reference ESR with the initial ESRo value to decrease. Analysis results show that the proposed DC Bus electrolytic capacitor reference ESR model setting technique can be applied to advanced reference signal of capacitor diagnosis systems successfully.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제61권1호
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• pp.41-46
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• 2012

Electrolytic power capacitors have been widely used in power conversion system such as inverter or UPS because of characteristics of large capacitance, high-voltage and low-cost. The electrolytic capacitor, which is most of the time affected by the aging effect, plays a very important role for the power-electronics system quality and reliability. Therefore it is important to diagnosis monitoring the condition of an electrolytic capacitor in real-time to predict the failure. In this paper, the on-line remote diagnosis monitoring system for UPS DC link electrolytic capacitors using low-cost single-chip zigbee communication modules is developed. To estimate the health status of the capacitor, the equivalent series resistor(ESR) of the component has to be determined. The capacitor ESR is estimated by using RMS computation using BPF modeling of DC link ripple voltage/current. Zigbee-based hardware experimental results show that the proposed remote capacitor diagnosis monitoring system can be applied to UPS successfully.