Design and Comparison of Inductors and Intercell Transformers for Filtering of PWM Inverter Output

This paper presents an original design option dedicated to output-filtered pulsewidth modulation inverters used in uninterruptible power systems, embedded networks, or motor drives operating on long cables. It is based on the coupling of interleaved inverter cells by means of intercell transformers (ICTs) and is characterized by very good dynamic behavior on load transients, which is an important issue in such applications. ICT solutions are compared with the classical interleaved solutions using separate inductors. A specific design method is developed to achieve this comparison based on toroidal core shapes. The results obtained with a 600 V, 7.5 kW inverter show the usefulness of ICT-based designs, especially when nanocrystalline magnetic material is used; high specific power and very good dynamic performances are obtained.