Advanced closing switch for three‐phase short‐circuit test of a very fast current limiter

Advanced closing switch for three‐phase short‐circuit test was developed for very fast current limiter using power electronics devices. The conventional short‐circuit test method was used for verification of the current interrupting device with longer time duration to interrupt fault current after the separation of contacts. In the conventional short‐circuit test method, a deviation of the closing time between each phase closing switch with a mechanical driving was regulated so that the breaking performance of the conventional switching device could be examined. However, in the new current limiter with very short fault current interruption time, the deviation time between each phase must be reduced less than the regulated time by the conventional test method. For this purpose, the advanced closing switch for three‐phase short‐circuit test method was developed. In the advanced test method, power electronics devices were used for the initiation of three‐phase short‐circuit fault. Results of the short‐circuit test showed that the advanced circuit had very small deviation time between the initiation of each phase fault. Also, the very fast current limiter with power electronics devices was shown to have an intended interrupting performance. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 130(1): 68–75, 2000     

A calculation method of field current of synchronous machines at sudden short‐circuit

The mutual leakage reactance between D‐axis damper and field windings is ignored in conventional D‐axis equivalent circuits. It has been pointed out, however, that the calculated value of the field current differs considerably from the measured value if this reactance is not taken into account. This is due to the difficulty of determining the physically correct damper winding impedance value. A method of determining the equivalent circuit constants using the mutual leakage reactance has been reported previously, where the D‐axis damper winding time constant is measured from the upper and lower envelopes of field current at sudden three‐phase short‐circuit. Yet there are machines for which the upper and lower envelopes of field current are not readily established, and in this case the method is unsatisfactory. The authors describe a method to accurately identify the equivalent circuit constants taking into account the mutual leakage reactance, using a standstill test with a small‐capacity DC power supply (DC decay testing method). The field current at sudden short‐circuit can be simulated accurately using these equivalent circuit constants. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by implementation results on two salient‐pole synchronous machines at the same specifications (one with damper winding, the other without). Furthermore, the dependent relation between the armature leakage reactance and mutual leakage reactance, as well as its influence on the calculation of field transient currents, are made clear. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 151(3): 61–70, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20113     

Control of fault current limiter by series‐connected voltage sag compensator

This paper describes a control scheme of fault current limiter by series voltage injection. The current limiter proposed in this study is based on the use of a SMES‐based series‐connected voltage sag compensator, which has been previously studied by the authors, for controlling fault current caused by short circuit on the load side. An algorithm for fast discriminating between power system voltage sag and load‐side short circuit is proposed for the equipment to correctly function either for voltage sag compensation or for fault current limiting purpose. Furthermore, a new control strategy based on output voltage phase control of the series compensator is proposed for current limiting with good waveform characteristics and low active power absorption. Experimental results demonstrated the validity of the proposed strategy. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 155(2): 64–72, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20128     

Magnetic field analysis of a 70‐MW‐class superconducting generator by the 3D finite element method

The three‐dimensional magnetic field and eddy current distribution of the 70‐MW‐class superconducting generator was calculated by a finite element method. The condition for the exciting armature coil was calculated by the jω‐method. In the magnetic flux distribution of the armature winding bore, the value obtained by analysis had good agreement with the measurement. An analysis that let the rotor move by the synchronizing speed was also done. The armature voltage for the nonload condition and the armature current for the three‐phase short‐circuit condition obtained by calculations had good agreement with the measurements. The validity of the analytical model for three‐dimensional magnetic field analysis of superconducting generators was confirmed from these results. In addition, the synchronous reactances were calculated using these results with eddy current in the facing. It was found that the facing had the effect of decreasing synchronous reactance by about 5%. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 134(2): 53–60, 2001     

Efficient output waveform evaluation of a CMOS inverter based on short‐circuit current prediction

A novel approach for obtaining the output waveform, the propagation delay and the short‐circuit power dissipation of a CMOS inverter is introduced. The output voltage is calculated by solving the circuit differential equation only for the conducting transistor while the effect of the short‐circuit current is considered as an additional charge, which has to be discharged through the conducting transistor causing a shift to the output waveform. The short‐circuit current as well as the corresponding discharging current are accurately predicted as functions of the required time shift of the output waveform. A program has been developed that implements the proposed method and the results prove that a significant speed improvement can be gained with a minor penalty in accuracy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A three‐phase constant‐current source using an immittance converter

The term immittance converter refers to an impedance–admittance converter. The immittance converter has an input impedance that is proportional to the admittance of the load connected across output terminals. In this converter, the output current is proportional to the input voltage and the input current is proportional to the output voltage. Consequently, it converts a constant‐voltage source into a constant‐current source and a constant‐current source into a constant‐voltage source. It is well known that the quarter wavelength transmission line shows immittance conversion characteristics. However, it has a very long line length for the switching frequency, and is not suitable for power electronics applications. We thus proposed immittance converters that consist of lumped elements L, C and show improved immittance conversion characteristics at a resonant frequency. A three‐phase constant‐current source is proposed in this paper. It is possible to realize this by a simple circuit using an immittance converter. In this paper, circuit operation, characteristic equations, and results of simulation are described. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 151(4): 47–54, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20078     

Newly proposed hybrid resonant commutation bridge‐leg link snubber‐assisted three‐phase ZVZCS‐PWM soft‐switching inverter

This paper presents the newly proposed hybrid resonant commutation bridge‐leg link (HRCB) snubber circuit which can achieve zero voltage and zero current soft‐switching commutation for single‐phase and three‐phase voltage source‐type inverter, along with its unique features and operation principle. The circuit parameter design approach for the HRCB snubber circuit and the determination estimating scheme of the gate pulse timing processing which is more suitable and acceptable for single‐phase and space voltage vector modulated three‐phase voltage source inverter using the HRCB snubber circuit are described in this paper. In particular, the three‐phase voltage source soft‐switching inverter associated with the proposed HRCB circuits are evaluated and discussed from simulation and experimental viewpoints. The practical effectiveness of the HRCB snubber‐assisted three‐phase voltage source soft‐switching inverter using IGBT power modules which is based on the instantaneous space voltage vector modulation is clarified on the output voltage waveform, actual efficiency of electromagnetic noise in comparison with three‐phase voltage source‐type conventional hard‐switching inverter. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(4): 75–84, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20111     

Short‐circuit current calculation and performance requirement of HVDC breakers for MMC‐MTDC systems

To evaluate the performance requirement of high‐voltage direct current (HVDC) breakers for modular multilevel converter (MMC)‐MTDC (multi‐terminal high voltage direct current) systems with high efficiency, the equivalent model for calculating the maximum short‐circuit current is presented in this paper. First, the short‐circuit current is decomposed into the steady‐state component and the fault component according to its physical dynamics. Second, the steady‐state component is determined by solving the direct current (DC) network; the fault component is calculated by an equivalent network in which the converters are replaced by a reactance, a resistance, and a capacitance in series. Then, the complete procedure for evaluating the performance requirement of HVDC breakers is described based on short‐circuit current calculation. Verifications have been carried out based on a three‐terminal 800 MW/±400 kV bipolar MMC‐MTDC system. The results show that the proposed methodology is efficient and effective. Lastly, based on the same system, the performance requirement of HVDC breakers and the influence by the sub‐module (SM) capacitance and the smoothing reactor have been studied with the proposed methodology. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Proposal of flux‐lock‐type fault current limiter with high‐TC superconducting element

This paper proposes a new type of fault current limiter (FCL), which consists of a high‐T_C superconducting (HTS) element and two coils wound on the same core without any leakage magnetic flux. In this FCL, either the limiting impedance or the initial limiting current level can be controlled by adjusting the inductances and the winding direction of the coils. Therefore, this FCL could relax the material restrictions on high‐T_C superconducting FCL. A current‐limiting experiment by a model FCL was carried out, and the limiting performance was observed. The initial limiting current level of the model FCL was 1.7 times higher than the critical current of the HTS element, and the fault current is suppressed to 52% immediately after the short‐circuit in the test. Considering voltage–current characteristics of a high‐T_C superconductor in a computer simulation, the calculated results almost agreed with the experimental results. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 127(1): 31–38, 1999     

Equivalent circuit modeling of discharge current injected in contact with an ESD‐gun

The transient electromagnetic (EM) fields caused by an electrostatic discharge (ESD) have broadband frequency spectra, which cause serious failure to high‐tech information equipment. From this perspective, ESD testing for the EM immunity of the equipment is specified by IEC 61000‐4‐2, in which the detailed waveform of the discharge current injected onto the IEC recommended Pellegrini target in contact with an ESD‐gun is prescribed for calibration. However, the factors for determining the current waveform remain unclear, and thus the IEC prescribed current waveform is unlikely to be injected into actual equipment. In this study, based on the structure of an ESD‐gun, an equivalent circuit modeling is proposed for analyzing the discharge current injected onto a 50‐Ω SMA connector instead of the IEC target that has frequency‐dependent transmission characteristics. Its validity is confirmed by comparing the calculated current waveform with the measured result. The proposed circuit modeling is also validated from measurement of the discharge current injected onto a transmission line by the ESD‐gun. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 149(1): 8–14, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10367     

Calculation of magnetic near field generated by the contact discharge of an ESD gun

An ESD (electrostatic discharge) testing is specified in the IEC 61000‐4‐2, in which the detailed waveform of the discharge current injected by an ESD gun is prescribed. However, due to lack of understanding of the discharge process, it is difficult to confirm whether or not the IEC current waveform can be injected onto actual equipment. We thus previously proposed an equivalent circuit model for the ESD gun based on its geometrical structure, and showed decisive factors for the discharge current. In this study, in order to confirm the feasibility of the above equivalent circuit model, we measured with a 6‐GHz wide‐band digital oscilloscope the discharge current through an SMA connector and the resultant magnetic near field for the contact discharge of an ESD gun. As a result, we found that both measured waveforms approximately agree with those calculated from our equivalent circuit model. We then measured with respect to charge voltages the magnetic near fields for the contact discharge of the ESD gun to the ground, which revealed that the measured waveform around the first peak is in fair agreement with the calculated one. Furthermore, we found that the magnetic field peak increases with increasing charge voltage, whose dependence can be predicted from our equivalent model. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(1): 17–24, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20194     

Relationship between current waveform just before current zero and interruption ability of high‐speed VCB

A high‐speed vacuum circuit breaker which forces the fault current to zero was investigated. The test circuit breaker consisted of a vacuum interrupter and a high‐frequency current source. A vacuum interrupter with an axial magnetic field electrode and a disk‐shaped electrode was tested. The arcing period of the high‐speed vacuum circuit breaker is much shorter than that of a conventional circuit breaker. The arc behavior of the test electrodes immediately after the contact separation was observed by a high‐speed video recorder. The relation between the current waveform just before the current zero point and the interruption ability was investigated experimentally by varying the high‐frequency current source. The results demonstrate the interruption ability and the arc behavior of the high‐speed vacuum circuit breaker. Effective current interruption is made possible by a low current period just before the current zero point, even though the arcing time is short and the arc is concentrated. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 172(2): 20–27, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20915     

Current waveform control of a high‐power‐factor rectifier circuit for harmonic suppression of voltage and current in a distribution system

This paper presents the input current waveform control of the rectifier circuit which realizes simultaneously the high input power factor and the harmonics suppression of the receiving‐end voltage and the source current under the distorted receiving‐end voltage. The proposed input current waveform includes the harmonic components which are in phase with the receiving‐end voltage harmonics. The control parameter in the proposed waveform is designed by examining the characteristics of both the harmonic suppression effect in the distribution system and the input power factor of the rectifier circuit. The effectiveness of the proposed current waveform has been confirmed experimentally. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 140(4): 62–71, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10046     

Development of a 70‐MW‐class quick response excitation superconducting generator

A superconducting generator is expected to be a next‐generation machine due to its many advantages over a conventional generator. Super‐GM has been promoting R&D of 70‐MW‐class superconducting model generators to verify the basic technologies required for the design and manufacture of a 200‐MW‐class superconducting pilot generator. Verification tests of the third model generator, quick response excitation type C generator, were finished in June 1999. The excellent characteristics as a superconducting generator were verified through the series of tests. We report main test results such as “open and short‐circuit test,” “loaded test,” “quick excitation test,” “negative‐phase sequence overcurrent test,” and “sudden short circuit test.” © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 140(1): 22–29, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10029     

A simplified cascade current‐source inverter interconnected to a single‐phase three‐wire distribution system and its application to electric energy storage systems with batteries

A novel current source inverter system interconnected to the single‐phase grid is proposed. It has the same construction as the conventional three‐phase current source inverter that is interconnected to the single‐phase three‐wire distribution system. Though the proposed circuit has no output transformer, it can be equivalently performed as the single‐phase double cascade inverter by diverting the pole transformer in the utility system. By controlling the appropriate scheme, the output currents can be obtained as the five‐level waveforms and their distortions can be decreased sufficiently. It is applied to the interactive electric energy storage system with batteries and the basic discharging characteristics are discussed experimentally. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 150(2): 50–61, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10380     

Three‐phase EU orthogonal‐core variable inductor

The conventional orthogonal‐core variable inductor works in a saturation state using direct current, thus increasing the harmonics of the alternating current. This paper presents an orthogonal‐core variable inductor that consisted of one E core and one U core. The three‐phase variable inductor reduces the harmonic components because of its unique magnetic circuit topology. It does not include the third‐harmonic components in its output current. Some basic characteristics are verified through simulation and experimental results. © 2014 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Survey of integrated‐circuit‐oscillator phase‐noise analysis

This tutorial distills the salient phase‐noise analysis concepts and key equations developed over the last 75 years relevant to integrated circuit oscillators. Oscillator phase and amplitude fluctuations have been studied since at least 1938 when Berstein solved the Fokker–Planck equations for the phase/amplitude distributions of a resonant oscillator. The principal contribution of this work is the organized, unified presentation of eclectic phase‐noise analysis techniques, facilitating their application to integrated circuit oscillator design. Furthermore, we demonstrate that all these methods boil down to obtaining three things: (1) noise modulation function; (2) noise transfer function; and (3) current‐controlled oscillator gain. For each method, this paper provides a short background explanation of the technique, a step‐by‐step procedure of how to apply the method to hand calculation/computer simulation, and a worked example to demonstrate how to analyze a practical oscillator circuit with that method. This survey article chiefly deals with phase‐noise analysis methods, so to restrict its scope, we limit our discussion to the following: (1) analyzing integrated circuit metal–oxide–semiconductor/bipolar junction transistor‐based LC, delay, and ring oscillator topologies; (2) considering a few oscillator harmonics in our analysis; (3) analyzing thermal/flicker intrinsic device‐noise sources rather than environmental/parametric noise/wander; (4) providing mainly qualitative amplitude‐noise discussions; and (5) omitting measurement methods/phase‐noise reduction techniques. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variations in discharge current waveforms and their power spectra injected from contact discharges of ESD‐gun with different arrangements

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has prescribed an immunity test (IEC61000‐4‐2) of electronic equipment against electrostatic discharges (ESDs), in which a discharge current to be injected onto equipment under test is specified. As for the waveform, however, not the whole waveform but only the rise time, the first peak, and the current amplitudes at 30 and 60 ns are given in the time domain together with their uncertainties, which are required to check on the condition that an ESD generator (ESD‐gun) shall be arranged vertically to an IEC‐recommended calibration target and its earth return wire is kept away as far as possible from a vertical ground plane (IEC standard arrangement). In this study, to clarify how arrangements of an ESD‐gun and its earth return wire affect discharge currents, we measured discharge current waveforms for contact discharges of an ESD‐gun onto an IEC calibration target with respect to various inclinations of the ESD‐gun and arrangements of its earth return wire, and also calculated their current power spectra normalized to that of the discharge current for the IEC standard arrangement. As a result, we found that inclinations of the ESD gun affect the first peak current, which increases current power spectra by 14 dB at frequencies over 300 MHz, and that arrangements of the return wire influence the current waveforms between the first and second peaks, which provides variations in power spectra by ±12 dB in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 200 MHz. This finding suggests that arrangements of an ESD‐gun and its earth return wire are likely to cause different immunity test results. It was also found that in comparison with measured discharge currents for the standard arrangement, the calculated waveform of a discharge current from a formula, which has been included in the recent standard, has a more gentle falling waveform, and produces power spectra of +15 dB in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 200 MHz and –12 dB at frequencies over 300 MHz. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 180(1): 9–14, 2012; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21270     

Current‐mode dual‐output ICCII‐based tunable universal biquadratic filter with low‐input and high‐output impedances

A new tunable current‐mode (CM) biquadratic filter with three inputs and three outputs using three dual‐output inverting second‐generation current conveyors, three grounded resistors and two grounded capacitors is proposed. The proposed circuit exhibits low‐input impedance and high‐output impedance which is important for easy cascading in the CM operations. It can realize lowpass, bandpass, highpass, bandreject and allpass biquadratic filtering responses from the same topology. The circuit permits orthogonal controllability of the quality factor Q and resonance angular frequency ω_o, and no component matching conditions or inverting‐type input current signals are imposed. All the passive and active sensitivities are low. Hspice simulation results are based on using TSMC 0.18 µm 1P6M process complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology and supply voltages ±0.9 V to verify the theoretical analysis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.