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New advanced concept of the flying capacitor asymmetric multilevel voltage source inverter

Henda Jabberi (Research Laboratory Materials, Measurement and Applications, National Institute of Applied Science and Technology, INSAT, University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia)
Faouzi Ben Ammar (Research Laboratory Materials, Measurement and Applications, National Institute of Applied Science and Technology, INSAT, University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia)

Abstract

Purpose

To improve the voltage quality in AC adjustable high-power-speed-drive applications, the purpose of the paper is to provide a large number of output levels without increasing the number of commutation cells in the three-phase, n-cells flying capacitor voltage source asymmetric Multilevel Inverter (MI). The concept is based on the selection of different ratios between the breakdown voltages of two successive power devices. The new mathematical model is developed under various ratios, allows a thorough investigation of the harmonic distortions, flying capacitor energy storage, flying capacitor voltage balancing controllability and blocking voltage insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) capability.

Design/methodology/approach

The asymmetrical design provides a large number of output levels without increasing the number of commutation cells. The important new analytical expression of capacitors voltage distribution is derived and extended to any ratio between the switch breakdown voltages of two successive power devices.

Findings

The detailed simulation study of the proposed concept has been carried out using MATLAB/Simulink. The power switches control of the three-phase three-cell MI is assured by new phase-shifted-multi-carrier pulse width modulation. The space vector representation is used to show the regular and irregular step output voltage in the complex plan (α,β).

Originality/value

In the paper, the n cells flying capacitor inverter, which typically operates in the (n + 1) levels mode, was extended to (n + 2), (n + 3) … until 2n levels with regular or irregular step output voltage. Consequently, the claimed advantages of the asymmetric MI are to improve power quality by reducing harmonic distortions and to reduce the requirement on capacitive energy storage in the circuit.

Keywords

Citation

Jabberi, H. and Ben Ammar, F. (2018), "New advanced concept of the flying capacitor asymmetric multilevel voltage source inverter", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 1166-1188. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-04-2017-0168

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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