Stability and Voltage Balance Control of a Modular Converter With Multiwinding High-Frequency Transformer

Abstract

In this paper, a novel modular cascaded multi-level converter with multiwinding high-frequency (MWHF) transformer is proposed for medium- or high-voltage applications. In the proposed converter, a cascaded H-bridge rectifier (CHBR) is connected directly with the input ac source while the traditional step-down transformer is no longer necessary. Then, an isolated dc-dc converter composed by a group of H-bridge converters and a MWHF transformer with high power density is used to isolate the dc buses produced by the CHBR. The equivalent circuit and mathematical model of the MWHF transformer and the high frequency (HF) converter are obtained firstly in this paper. Then, the voltage stability under unbalanced loads is analyzed and the naturally balance ability is verified. To accelerate the dc bus voltage balancing process, a voltage balance control algorithm based on energy exchange between different transformer windings is proposed that is realized by accomplishing the phase shift adjustment of the terminal voltages on different windings. Simulations and experiments are implemented to verify the performance of the proposed converter and voltage balance algorithm.