A family of converters for UPS production burn-in energy recovery

This paper introduces a family of power converters for power recycling during the burn-in test of synchronized uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) with sinusoidal output voltage. The use of the power recycler to replace the resistor load bank in the UPSs burn-in test causes great energy savings, and the optimized use of electrical energy contributes in reducing the final cost of the product. The main feature of the new circuits is their ability to draw from the UPS and to inject into the utility-grid currents with low total harmonic distortion (THD) and high power factor (PF). The new circuits operate at constant frequency and are regulated by conventional pulse width modulation (PWM) using dedicated PWM and PF controller integrated circuits developed for power supplies. Circuit operation, mathematical analysis, design example, and experimental results for discontinuous current mode (DCM) and continuous current mode (CCM) operation are provided in this paper     

Isolated DC-DC converters with high-output voltage for TWTA telecommunication satellite applications

Two alternatives for the implementation of an isolated DC-DC converter operating with a high output voltage and supplied by an unregulated low input voltage are presented in this paper. The proposed topologies are especially qualified for the implementation of travelling wave tube amplifiers (TWTA) utilized in telecommunication satellite applications due to their low mass and volume and their high-efficiency. The converters studied follow different principles and the main operational aspects of each topology are analyzed. A two-stage structure composed by a regulator connected in series with a ZVS/ZCS isolated DC-DC converter is the first topology proposed. The second topology studied is an isolated single-stage converter that continues being highly efficient even with a large input voltage variation. The experimental results obtained from two prototypes, implemented following the design procedures developed, are presented, verifying experimentally the characteristics and the analysis of the proposed structures. The prototypes are developed for an application requiring an output power of 150 W, a total output voltage of 3.2 kV and an input voltage varying from 26 V to 44 V. The minimum efficiency obtained for both converters operating at the nominal output power, is equal to 93.4% for the two-stage structure and equal to 94.1% for the single-stage converter.     

A new ZVS-PWM unity power factor rectifier with reduced conductionlosses

This paper introduces a new single-phase high power factor rectifier, which features regulation by conventional PWM, soft commutation and instantaneous average line current control. Furthermore, thanks to the use of a single converter, instead of the conventional configuration composed of a four-diode front-end rectifier followed by a boost converter, a significant reduction in the conduction losses is achieved. A prototype rated at 1.6 kW, operating at 70 kHz, with an input AC voltage of 220 Vrms and an output voltage of 400 V_DC has been implemented in the laboratory. An efficiency of 97.8 % at 1.6 kW has been measured. Analysis, design, and the control circuitry are also presented in the paper     

A network of pyramidal neurons is sensitive to the timing of its excitatory inputs

The transmission of excitatory inputs by a network of coupled pyramidal cells is investigated by means of numerical simulations. The pyramidal cell models are coupled by excitatory synapses and each one receives an excitatory pulse at a random time extracted from a Gaussian distribution. Moreover, each cell model is injected with a noisy current. It was found that the excitatory coupling promotes the transmission of the synaptic inputs on a time scale of a few ms.     

Fundamentals of a new diode clamping multilevel inverter

The conventional diode clamping inverter suffers from such problems as DC link unbalance, indirect clamping of the inner devices, turn-on snubbing of the inner DC rails as well as series association of the clamping diodes etc. It is due largely to these problems that the application of the conventional diode clamping inverter in practice has been deterred, in spite of the growing discussion in the literature. The paper proposes a new diode clamping inverter, which works without the series association of the clamping diodes. An auxiliary resistive clamping network solving the indirect clamping problem of the inner devices is also discussed for both the new and conventional diode clamping inverter. Operation principle, clamping mechanism, auxiliary clamping as well as experimentation are presented     

A 3-kW unity-power-factor rectifier based on a two-cell boostconverter using a new parallel-connection technique

This paper applies a recently introduced parallel connection technique to a unity power-factor preregulator based on a boost power converter incontinuous inductor-current mode. By means of a small extra inductance, two MOSFET pulsewidth modulation (PWM) cells are safely associated in parallel, which allows an increased output power being processed by two half-rated semiconductor devices. The new technique overcomes the existent alternatives, leading to a reliable switched power converter along with simplified layout requirements. This paper also presents a theoretical analysis accompanied by digital simulation cases. Results from a 3 kW prototype, based on the Unitrdae's UC3854 strategy, show that the present technique is very useful in revealing a natural balance among device currents. The laboratory circuit works at a 70 kHz switching frequency and also employs a soft-commutation network. This feature points to a high-efficiency converter and negligible device stresses, which have been verified in the laboratory     

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics database

Propofol emulsion supports bacterial growth. Extrinsic contamination of propofol has been implicated as an etiological event in postsurgical infections. When added to propofol, local anesthetics (e.g., lidocaine) alleviate the pain associated with injecting it. Because local anesthetics have antimicrobial activity, we determined whether lidocaine would inhibit microbial growth by comparing the growth of four microorganisms in propofol and in mixtures of propofol and lidocaine. Known quanta of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans were inoculated into solutions of 1% propofol, 0.2% lidocaine in propofol, 0.5% lidocaine in propofol, 0.5% lidocaine in isotonic sodium chloride solution, and 0.9% isotonic sodium chloride solution. All microorganisms were taken from stock cultures and incubated for 24 h. Growth of microorganisms in each solution was compared by counting the number of colony-forming units grown from a subculture of the solution at 0, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h. Propofol supported the growth of E. coli and C. albicans. Propofol maintained static levels of S. aureus and was bactericidal toward P. aeruginosa. The addition of 0.2% and 0.5% lidocaine to propofol failed to prevent the growth of the studied microorganisms. The effect of 0.5% lidocaine in isotonic sodium chloride solution did not differ from the effects of isotonic sodium chloride solution alone. We conclude that lidocaine, when added to propofol in clinically acceptable concentrations, does not exhibit antimicrobial properties. IMPLICATIONS: Local anesthetics such as lidocaine have antimicrobial activity. Propofol supports the growth of bacteria responsible for infection. Bacteria were added to propofol and propofol mixed with lidocaine. The addition of lidocaine to propofol in clinically relevant concentrations did not prevent the growth of bacteria. The addition of lidocaine to propofol cannot prevent infection from contaminated propofol.     

DC-DC converter: four switches V/sub pk/=V/sub in//2, capacitive turn-off snubbing, ZV turn-on

A new four-switch full-bridge dc-dc converter topology is especially well-suited for power converters operating from high input voltage: it imposes only half of the input voltage across each of the four switches. The two legs of a full-bridge converter are connected in series with each other, across the dc input source, instead of the usual topology in which each leg is connected across the dc source. The topology reduces turn-off switching losses by providing capacitive snubbing of the turn-off voltage transient, and eliminates capacitor-discharge turn-on losses by providing zero-voltage turn-on. (Switching losses are especially important in converters operating at high input voltage because turn-on losses are proportional to the square of the input voltage, and turn-off losses are proportional to the input voltage). The topology is suitable for resonant and nonresonant converters. It adds one bypass capacitor and one commutating inductor to the minimum-topology full-bridge converter (that inductor is already present in many present-day converters, to provide zero-voltage turn-on, or is associated with one or two capacitors to provide resonant operation), and contains a dc-blocking capacitor in series with the output transformer, primary winding, and some nonresonant converters (that capacitor is already present in resonant power converters). The paper gives a theoretical analysis, and experimental data on a 1.5-kW example that was built and tested: 600-Vdc input, 60-Vdc output at up to 25A, and 50-kHz switching frequency. The measured performance agreed well with the theoretical predictions. The measured efficiency was 93.6% at full load, and was a maximum of 95.15% at 44.8% load.     

Zero-voltage switching for the neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter

This paper proposes a transformer-assisted pulsewidth-modulation zero-voltage-switching neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter. With the assistance of a transformer-assisted small-rating lossless auxiliary circuit, the main switches work with zero-voltage switching without suffering from any voltage/current spikes, under simple explicit control. The technique allows for higher operating frequency and better device utilization of the NPC inverter. Operation, analysis, design, as well as testing results from a 7-kW prototype are presented in detail.     

The three-level ZVS-PWM DC-to-DC converter

A novel high-frequency DC-to-DC power converter for high voltage and high power is introduced which features zero voltage switching (ZVS), operation at constant frequency, regulation by pulse width modulation (PWM), and low RMS current stress upon power switches. Its greatest attribute, in comparison with the full-bridge (FB-ZVS-PWM) converter, is that the voltage across the switches is half of the input voltage, This property is achieved due to the use of a three-level leg in place of the conventional two-switch leg. Operation, analysis, design procedure and example, and simulation are presented. A prototype operating at 100 kHz, rated at 600 V input voltage, and 1.5 kW output power and 25 A output current has been fabricated and successfully tested in the laboratory. The measured efficiency at full load was 93%