AC filter inductor design for three-phase PWM inverter

Abstract

This paper presents the design method for a three-phase pulse width modulation (PWM) inverter with an AC filter inductor. In general, increasing the switching frequency is known to increase the switching device loss and decrease the volume of the passive components. An inverter design should consider the balance between conversion efficiency and inverter volume. However, as per our knowledge, no study has focused on the optimal design of a PWM inverter that includes an AC filter inductor. This is because the iron loss of the AC filter inductor changes in complicated ways depending on the switching ripple current, DC-bias excitation, etc. The authors clarified this iron loss mechanism and realized a highly accurate iron loss calculation method. Therefore, in this study, we designed a three-phase PWM inverter with an AC filter based on the switching frequency. The design method is confirmed by comparing the simulation and experimental results.