A thermal management approach to fault-resilient design of three-level IGCT-based NPC converters

Author

Rocha, Anderson V. ; De Paula, Hélder ; Santos, Manoel E dos ; Filho, Braz J Cardoso

Author_Institution

Postgraduaduate Program in Electr. Eng., UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

fYear

2012

fDate

15-20 Sept. 2012

Firstpage

1703

Lastpage

1710

Abstract

The three-level converter with neutral point clamped (NPC), introduced by Nabae in 1981, has become the most popular converter topology for high and medium-voltage industrial drives, being widely commercialized by major manufacturers worldwide. Responsible for driving key processes in various industries, high availability of these converters is mandatory, since their maintenance or replacement imply downtimes incompatible with the requirements of the production processes. Considering the possibility of failures in the protection schemes, this paper discusses a fault-resilient design for IGCT-based NPC converters based on proper thermal management of the power semiconductors. The main goal is show that the thermal stress caused by the short-circuit currents can be managed, improving the selectivity and tracing of the damaged components, thus reducing the overall converter downtime and the maintenance costs.

Keywords

fault diagnosis; maintenance engineering; power convertors; short-circuit currents; thermal stresses; fault-resilient design; maintenance costs; medium-voltage industrial drives; power semiconductors; production processes; protection schemes; short-circuit currents; thermal management approach; thermal stress; three-level IGCT-based NPC converters; Capacitors; Discharges (electric); Inverters; Rectifiers; Semiconductor diodes; Stress; Thermal stresses;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Raleigh, NC

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0802-1

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-0801-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ECCE.2012.6342607

Filename

6342607