Comparison of boost chopper and active buffer as single to three phase converter

This paper presents a comparison in terms of efficiency and volume between the single-to-three-phase power factor correction (PFC) converter. A conventional PFC circuit that consists of a boost chopper requires a large boost-up inductor and large smoothing capacitors to decouple the power ripple. The size and efficiency of the converter become a discussion issue recently. On the other hand, a single-to-three-phase power converter using an active buffer has been proposed. The active buffer does not require a large inductor and large smoothing capacitors in the DC link part. These two types of converters are designed and simulated to calculate the losses. In addition, a prototype converter has been built and tested. The efficiency achieves 94.6% at 1.5-kW same as the calculated efficiency. Furthermore, the efficiency increases by 1.5% comparing to the conventional converter. In addition, the volume is decreased by approximately 0.7 times then the size of the conventional converter.