Quick response and low-distortion current control for multipleinverter-fed induction motor drives

This paper describes a PWM control method to balance two unit inverter currents and to reduce the distortion of motor currents in a multiple GTO inverter for large capacity AC variable-speed drive systems. For an 11 kW induction motor driven by a 15 kVA multiple inverter, the imbalance current can be reduced to less than 5% of the rated motor current, and the motor current waveform can be made very close to sinusoidal. The GTO switching frequency in the multiple inverter can be lowered to one-quarter of that in the single inverter. In a 2750 kVA GTO inverter drive system which was developed based on the 15 kVA multiple inverter, excellent performance is obtained including unity power factor operation at an AC power source, smooth 4-quadrant operation, and quick speed response of 85 rad/s. The quick response is realized by field-oriented control with decoupling control between torque and exciting currents, and direct control of three-phase AC currents. In the future, the multiple GTO inverter is expected to be applied to rolling mill drives instead of cycloconverters     

Magnetic noise reduction technique for an AC motor driven by a PWMinverter

A technique for reducing magnetic noise from an AC motor driven by a pulsewidth modulation (PWM) inverter is proposed. In this technique, the meaningless magnetic noise is converted into selected information. The technique can be adopted independently of the inverter rated output power. The relationship between carrier waveform frequency in PWM control and harmonics contained in the motor current is first clarified by a harmonics analysis. Then a hardware circuit configuration and carrier frequency control software in a microcomputer are introduced. Using a musical melody as the selected information, the effect of this control is experimentally confirmed. It is shown that the desired sound can be obtained from the AC motor, and the motor voltage and motor current waveforms are not affected by such control     

A large-capacity GTO inverter with low-loss snubber circuits

A large-capacity inverter using high-power gate turn-off (GTO) thyristors that can be used instead of a cycloconverter in AC drives is presented. With the techniques of multiple configuration and GTO series connection, the inverter capacity is increased effectively. High conversion efficiency is obtained by using low-loss snubber circuits for GTOs. It is confirmed that the low-loss snubber circuits using energy recovery units (ERUs) have good performance in pulse-width modulated (PWM) operation. High-energy recovery efficiency is obtained, especially in leading operation (turn-on operation when freewheeling diodes conduct). These snubber circuits have superior ability for clamping overvoltage at GTO turn-off. A 2750 kVA inverter with low-loss snubber circuits using high-power GTOs has been fabricated and evaluated     

A Current Source GTO Inverter with Sinusoidal Inputs and Outputs

With the application of gate turn-off thyristors (GTO's) and PWM control techniques, a current source inverter capable of producing sinusoidal input/output (I/O) voltages and currents has been developed. The sinusoidally modulated current is fed to the GTO's in the rectifier and inverter sections. The overvoltage-absorption capacitors connected to the ac input and output terminals function as a filter and, consequently, the waveforms of the input/output voltages and currents become sinusoidal. Because the PWM control utilizes the high-speed switching characteristics of the GTO's, the dc link current smoothing reactor and the overvoltage absorption capacitors are greatly reduced. The dc link voltage in the rectifier section is controlled to adjust the ac motor current. This is accomplished by using the firing angle shift method in conjunction with the method involving varying the width of the bypass gate pulses, which put the rectifier section into a bypass state. The current source GTO inverter is used to drive an 11-kW induction motor. As a result, excellent acceleration and deceleration characteristics are obtained, which verifies that the new current source inverter is quite suitable for driving an ac motor at variable speeds.     

A New Current Source GTO Inverter with Sinusoidal Output Voltage and Current

A new current source inverter with sinusoidal output voltage and current is presented. Gate turn-off thyristors (GTO's) and pulsewidth modulation (PWM) control techniques are used in the current source inverter to produce the sinusoidal output voltage and current. Three capacitors are connected to the ac output terminals to absorb overvoltages which occur when the GTO current is cut off and to provide a filter function for reducing harmonics in the output current. Voltage spikes, which have been a serious problem in the practical application of this inverter, are suppressed by adding gate pulses which force the inverter into a state of shoot-through. Moreover, this inverter permits the capacitance of an ac output terminal capacitor for absorbing overvoltages to be reduced to one-tenth or less of that of a commutating capacitor in a conventional thyristor type current source inverter. A 3.7-kW induction motor is driven by the inverter. The motor efficiency and noise level are measured and compared with those obtained when the motor is driven by a conventional voltage source PWM inverter. An operating efficiency five or six percent higher and noise level 10 dB lower are obtained for the former. Therefore, this current source GTO inverter is very suitable for ac motor variable speed drives.