A Capacitor-Charging Power Supply Using a Series-Resonant Three-Level Inverter Topology

In this paper we present a Capacitor Charging Power Supply (CCPS) using a series-resonant three-level inverter topology to improve voltage regulation and use semiconductor switches having low blocking voltage capability such as MOSFETs. This inverter can be operated with two modes, Full Power Mode (FPM) and Half Power Mode (HPM). In FPM inverter supplies the high frequency step up transformer with full DC-link voltage and in HPM with half DC-link voltage. HPM switching method will be adopted when CCPS output voltage reaches the preset target value and operates in refresh mode-charge is maintained on the capacitor. In this topology each semiconductor devices blocks a half of the DC-link voltage[2]. A 15kW, 30kV CCPS has been built and will be tested for an electric precipitator application. The CCPS operates from an input voltage of 500VDC and has a variable output voltage between 10 to 30kV and 1kHz repetition rate at 44nF capacitive load [3]. A resonant frequency of 67.9kHz was selected and a voltage regulation of $0.83\%$ has been achieved through the use of half power mode without using the forced cut off the switch current [1]. The theory of operation, circuit topology and test results are given.