Investigation of topologies for IGCT three-level inverter

The integrated gate-commutated thyristor (IGCT) is a new device with low inductance and integrated gate-driver which is widely used in high power inverter. This paper presents the principle of IGCT clamping snubber, investigates several topologies with different turn-on clamping snubber for NPC three-level IGCT inverter and compares inverter topology with turn-off snubber to topology without turn-off snubber by a PSIM simulation. A high power NPC three-level inverter equipped with 4.5 kV/4 kA IGCT devices is implemented. The experiments of single IGCT device and three phase system demonstrate that both the power circuit and control system are designed reasonable and valid. The implementation inverter can be widely used in high power adjustable drive system.