heating, uninterruptive power supplies A three-phase inverter circuit changes DC input voltage to a three-phase variable frequency, variable voltage output The input DC voltage can be from a DC source or a rectified AC voltage A three-phase bridge inverter can be constructed by combining three single-phase half-bridge inverters. THREE PHASE INVERTER THREE PHASE LOADS It consists of six power-switches with six associated freewheeling diodes The switches are opened and closed periodically in the proper sequence to produce the desired output waveform The rate of switching determines the output frequency of the inverter Basically, there are two possible schemes of gating the devices In one scheme each device (switch) conducts for 180 and in the other scheme, each device conducts for 120 But in both these schemes, gating signals are applied and removed at 60 intervals of the output voltage waveform. 180-Conduction Mode with Resistive Load In this control scheme, each switch conducts for a period of 180 or half-cycle electrical. Switches are triggered in sequence of their numbers with an interval of 60. At a time, three switches (one from each leg) conduct. Thus, two switches of the same leg are prevented from conducting simultaneously. One complete cycle is divided into six modes, each of 60 intervals. Switch pair in each leg, i.e. S1 S4, S3 S6, and S5 S2 are turned-on with a time interval of 180 It means that switch S1 conducts for 180 and switch S4 for the next 180 of a cycle Switches, in the upper group, i.e. S1, S3, S5 conduct at an interval of 120 It means that if S1 is fired at 0, then-S3 must be triggered at 120 and S5 at 240. Same is true for lower group of switches. Operation Table Sl. No Interval Incoming SCR Conducting Pair Outgoing SCR 1 I T 1 T 5 , T 6 , T 1
T 4
2 II T 2 T 6 , T 1 , T 2 T 5
3 III T 3 T 1 , T 2 , T 3 T 6
4 IV T 4 T 2 , T 3 , T 4 T 1
5 V T 5 T 3 , T 4 , T 5 T 2
6 VI T 6 T 4 , T 5 , T 6 T 3
GATE CURRENT WAVEFORMS VOLTAGE WAVEFORMS FOR 180 MODE The following points can be noted from the wave forms and the operating Table, Each switch conducts for a period of 180 Switches are triggered in the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Phase shift between triggering the two adjacent switches is 60. From table, it is observed that in every step of 60 duration, only three switches are conducting-two from upper group and one from the lower group and vice- versa The output voltage waveforms (E AB , E BC , E CA ) are quasi- square-wave with a peak-value of Edc The three-line voltages are mutually phase-shifted by 120. The three-phase-voltages E AN ,E BN , and E CN are six-step waves, with step heights Edc/3 and 2Edc/3.
Line voltage E AB is leading the phase-voltage E AN by 30.
Phase voltages E AN , E BN and E CN have also been drawn for starconnected resistive load.
For a star-connected load, the line-to-neutral voltages must be determined to find the line or phase currents. There are three modes of operation in a half-cycle and the equivalent circuits are shown below for a star- connected load
During interval I for During interval II,
During interval III, The line voltage E AB = E AN - E BN is obtained by reversing E BN
and adding it to E AN Similarly other line voltages are plotted Phase voltages have six steps per cycle and line voltages have one positive pulse and one negative pulse (each of 120 duration) per cycle The phase as well as linevoltages are out of phase by 120 The instantaneous line-to-line voltage, E AB can be expressed in a Fourier-series, recognizing that E AB is shifted by /6 and even harmonics are zero E BC and E CA can be found by phase shifting E AB by 120 and 240 respectively
The line-to-line RMS voltage can be found from The RMS nth component of the line voltage is
which, for n = 1, gives the fundamental line voltage
The RMS value of line-to neutral voltages can be found from the line voltage
180 Conduction Mode with RL-Load With resistive loads, the diodes across the switch have no functions. If the load is inductive, then the current in each arm of the load will be delayed to its voltage as shown below When switch S1 is triggered, S4 is turned-off but, because the load current cannot reverse, the only path for this current is through diode D1. Hence, the load phase is connected to the positive end of the d.c. source but, until the load current reverses at t1, switch S1 will not take up conduction Similar arguments apply in the reverse half-cycle at instant t2 For a star-connected load, the phase voltage is E AN = E AB /3 with a delay of 30. The line current I L for an RL load is given by
For a delta-connected load, the phase currents can be obtained directly from the line-to-line voltages. Once the phase currents are known, the line currents can be determined 120 Conduction Mode with Resistive Load In this type of conduction mode, each switch conducts for 120 At any instant of time, only two switches remain on. Gate pulse indicates the conduction period of each switch. In this case also, six commutations per cycle are required. One period of inverter operation has been divided into six intervals. Like 180 mode, 120 mode inverter also requires six steps, each of 60 duration, for completing one cycle of the output a.c. Voltage. Operation Table
Sl. No Interval Incoming SCR Conducting Pair Outgoing SCR 1 I T 1 T 6 , T 1
T 5
2 II T 2 T 1 , T 2 T 6
3 III T 3 T 2 , T 3 T 1
4 IV T 4 T 3 , T 4 T 2
5 V T 5 T 4 , T 5 T 3
6 VI T 6 T 5 , T 6 T 4
GATE CURRENT WAVEFORMS
VOLTAGE WAVEFORMS FOR 120 MODE
Following points can be noted from the waveforms and the operating Table The base drives of two switches in the same-half-bridge have an inherent dead band of 60. Hence, there is no possibility of cross conduction or shoot-through fault. Conduction period for each switch is 120. The phase-shift between the triggering of every two adjacent switches is 60. Three line voltages, E AB E BC and E CA are six-step waves, with step heights Edc/2 and Edc The three-line voltages are mutually phase shifted by 120. The three-phase voltages E AN , E BN and E CN are quasi-square- waves with peak values of Edc/2. They are also mutually phase- shifted by 120 The line-voltage E AB is leading the phase-voltage E AN by 30 From operating table two switches conduct at a time, one from the upper group and the other from the lower group. The equivalent circuits for a starconnected load are During interval I, for Switches S1 and S6 conduct
During interval II,for Switches S1 and S2 conduct During interval III,for
Switches S2 and S3 conduct
The line-to-neutral voltages can be expressed in Fourier-series as
Comparison of Two Conduction Modes In 180 mode conduction, when gate signal I g1 is removed to turn-off switch S1 at t = 180, gating signal I g4 is simultaneously applied to turn-on switch S4 inthe same leg In practice, a commutation interval must exist between the removal of Ig and application of Ig for proper and reliable operation of the inverter circuit Since enough time may not be provided for the commutation of switch and two switches in series may simultaneously conduct, resulting into short circuit of the source by these switches This problem is overcome considerably in 120 mode inverter In this inverter, there is a 60 interval between the turning-off of S1 and turning-on of S4 During this 60 interval, switch S1 can be commutated safely. Thus, enough time is made available for the outgoing switch to commutate before the switch in series is turned-on Therefore, commutation is more reliable and the possibility of two series switches conducting simultaneously is much less. The second important difference is in terms of utility of devices The comparison of the two patterns is done using a figure of merit termed as utility factor (UF) and is defined as UF= P o / P T where P o is the rated output power of the inverter and P T is the measure of total power handling capability of the devices employed in the inverter, and is defined as P T = N V DRM . Irms where N= number of thyristors, V DRM = repetitive peak forward-voltage Irms = rated RMS forward current For the purpose of comparison of the two control schemes, it is usual to calculate the utility factor for ideal resistive load Inverter with 180 -Conduction For star-connected load, if R is the resistance per phase, then
Device rating will be chosen such that the RMS current flowing through it will be equal to its RMS current rating Irms Therefore, under the rated conditions, the RMS value of load phase current I p is given by,
Load power Po can also be written as
For this load, the repetitive peak forward voltage rating of the device should be equal to Edc. Thus, Inverter with 120 Conduction For star-connected load, with a per phase resistance of R, output power Po will be given by Three-phase six-level diode-clamped inverter structure. Eleven-level wye-configured cascaded inverter.