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In conventional medium-voltage high-power cascaded H-bridge (CHB) drive, a three-phase rectifier is adopted in each power cell to provide isolated dc-bus voltage for the output H-bridge. This limits the application of the conventional CHB drive, where regeneration capability is desired. The regenerative CHB drive can be made possible by replacing the diode rectifier with a three-phase IGBT-based active-front-end (AFE) rectifier in each power cell. However, due to thermal constraints in the high-power medium-voltage drives, the first challenge of the regenerative CHB drive is to deal with the extra switching losses introduced by the IGBT devices. Another challenge of the grid-tied regenerative CHB drive is to handle the low-voltage sags in the power grid without triggering unnecessary downtime in transients. In this article, a novel low-switching frequency control strategy is proposed for the AFEs in the regenerative CHB drive with low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) capability. The main harmonic contents generated by the AFEs with the proposed control strategy can be eliminated by the existing phase-shifting transformer in the CHB drives. This allows meeting with IEEE STD 519-2014 requirement with a 60 Hz switching frequency to minimize the extra introduced switching losses in steady state. Moreover, LVRT capability is integrated into the proposed control scheme with reduced current sensor count. Accompanied with videos, the experiments on a seven-level regenerative CHB drive are implemented to validate the feasibility of the proposed control scheme, which can be extended to regenerative CHB drives with any voltage levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial power supply for the gate driver of integrated gate-commutated thyristors (GCTs) is an expensive proposition since the supply's output must withstand the high voltage of the GCT switch against all other relevant potentials in the converter. This voltage varies from a few thousand volts to several ten thousands of volts over the GCT application range. In this paper, a novel self-powered supply is proposed for the GCT gate driver, where the supply obtains energy from the snubber circuit of the GCT switch and then provides a regulated dc voltage for the gate driver. Since the snubber circuit is at the same potential as the GCT, the insulation level of the supply is reduced from thousands of volts to a couple of hundred volts, leading to a significant reduction in cost and size. The supply configuration is introduced and its operating principle is discussed. The design guidelines are discussed and experimental results from a 4160 V GCT current source rectifier are also provided. Index Terms--AC motor drives, power conversion, power electronics, power semiconductor devices, switched power supplies.

This paper presents a novel switching sequence design for the space-vector modulation of high-power multilevel converters. The switching sequences are optimized for the improvement of harmonic spectrum and the minimization of device switching frequency. Compared to other commonly used switching sequences, the output spectrum of the proposed design shows higher inverter equivalent switching frequency. Meanwhile, the device switching frequency is reduced by using a flexible switching pattern. The proposed switching sequence has been simulated and experimentally tested on a 5-level neutral point clamped H-bridge based inverter. The results from both simulations and experiments consistently verify the above-mentioned features. Index Terms--Multilevel power converter, power conversion harmonics, space vector modulation (SVM), switching loss.

This paper presents a theoretical model that describes the sheath around a negatively biased substrate in a vacuum arc deposition (VAD) plasma. The model consists of: 1) Poisson's equation for the potential distribution, 2) Boltzmann's distribution for the electrons, and 3) a cosinusoidal form for the ion spatial distribution. The simplified model equations were solved numerically for the potential distribution and sheath thickness as a function of the process parameters such as bias voltage and radial distance from the cathode. The obtained sheath thickness versus bias voltage is compared with those from the Child-Langmuir equation. The numerical results show that the sheath has a very sharp edge and that its thickness is much larger than the Debye length. Index Terms - Cathode-spot-arc plasma, sheath, titanium nitrides, vacuum arc deposition.

This paper presents an active cross-connected modular multilevel converter (AC-MMC) based on series-connected half-bridge modules. It is intended for completely enhancing the performance of a medium-voltage motor drive system in the full speed range from standstill to rated speed under all load conditions. The proposed AC-MMC circuit is characterized by the cross connection of upper and lower arm middle taps through a branch of series-connected half-bridge converters, which have an identical voltage and current rating with the submodules in the upper and lower arms. This cross-connected branch provides a physical power transfer channel for the upper and lower arms. By properly controlling the amount of high-frequency current flowing through the cross-connected branch, the power balance between the upper and lower arms is achieved even at a zero/low motor speed under constant torque condition. Meanwhile, no common-mode voltage is introduced in the whole speed range. A control strategy with focus on submodule capacitor voltage control is also proposed in this paper to guarantee the normal converter operation. Simulation results obtained from a 4160-V, 1-MW model verify the feasibility of the proposal. Experiments on a downscaled prototype also confirm the validity of the novel circuit and the associated control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]