A Systematic Evaluation of AC-Fed Converter Topologies for Light Weight Motor Drive Applications Using SiC Semiconductor Devices

This paper presents a systematic evaluation approach for AC-fed converter topologies. Using light-weight as the comparison metric, the proposed approach considers the contribution of all major parts in a converter system. With the proposed scheme four converter topologies, back-to-back voltage source converter (B2B-VSC), Vienna rectifier plus voltage source inverter (VSI), back-to-back current source converter (B2B-CSQ and matrix converter, are analyzed and compared for a high weight density motor drive using SiC devices. Compared with the previous work on topology evaluation, the impacts of the switching frequency and the failure mode are studied and evaluated. The results show that Vienna rectifier plus VSI working in 40 kHz can has the best weight performance with the conditions specified in this paper.