Performance improvements of power converters for high power induction motor drive

Abstract

This paper deals with a reliable transformer configuration with simple wiring and less number windings for twenty-four pulse AC-DC converter, which is used in medium voltage drive system so that it can adverse the effects produced by harmonics currents fed into the grid by converters that do not affect other consumers connected to the same electrical grid. Apart from this, a five-level symmetrical multilevel inverter configuration is used by cascading four two-level voltage source inverters. It is designed with less quantity of components counts like; power switches, diodes and electrolytic capacitors. Because power quality impacts the suitability of electrical power for consumer electronics, an attempt is made in this work to improve power quality through the connecting high-pulse converter at the grid end instead of 12-pulse and modified level-shifted pulse width modulation for a multi-level inverter at the drive end. Performance of the described topology is verified in the laboratory using a drive-through MATLAB/Simulink environment and a prototype at a reduced scale. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed topology are demonstrated by a comprehensive comparison with recently reported schemes. Promising results validate this new concept.