A simple energy recovery circuit for high-power inverters with complete turn-on and turn-off snubbers

This paper presents and analyzes an active energy recovery circuit for the inductive turn-on snubber and capacitive turn-off snubber used on high-power gate-turn-off thyristor inverters. The circuit performs as a simple switched-mode power supply and recovers the inductive and capacitive snubbers energy induced in power inverters back into the dc rail with the aid of an extra switch. The features and operation of the proposed circuit are given and supported by PSpice simulations and experimental results.