• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제27권6호
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• pp.535-540
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• 2022

DC-link capacitors are reliability-critical components in a photovoltaic (PV) inverter. Typically, the lifetime of a DC-link capacitor is evaluated by considering the voltage and hot-spot temperature of the capacitor under the specific operating condition of the PV inverter. However, the output of the PV inverter is determined by solar irradiation and ambient temperature, which vary with the seasons; accordingly, the hot-spot temperature of the capacitor also changes. Therefore, the mission profile of the PV system should be considered to effectively evaluate the reliability of the DC-link capacitor. In this study, the reliability of the DC-link capacitor of a three-level NPC inverter is comparatively analyzed with and without considering the mission profiles of the PV system, where two mission profiles recorded in Arizona and Iza are considered. The accumulated damage of the DC-link capacitor is calculated based on the lifetime model by analyzing its thermal loading. Afterward, a reliability evaluation of the DC-link capacitor is performed at the component level and then at the system level by considering all capacitors by means of Monte Carlo analysis. Results reveal the importance of performing a mission-profile-based reliability evaluation during the design of high-reliability PV inverters to achieve the target reliability performance.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.1067-1074
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• 2018

This paper presents a control method for variable-speed motor drives that do not use a DC-link electrolytic capacitor. The proposed circuit consists of a power factor correction converter for boosting the DC-link voltage, an inverter for driving the motor, and a small DC-link film capacitor. By employing a small DC-link capacitor, the proposed circuit that is small, and a low cost and weight are achieved. However, because the DC-link voltage varies periodically, the control of the circuit is more difficult than that of the conventional method. Using the proposed control method, an inverter can be controlled reliably even when the capacitance of the DC-link capacitor is very small. Experiments are performed using a 1.5-kW inverter with a $20-{\mu}F$ DC-link capacitor, and the experimental results are analyzed thoroughly.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.291-296
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• 2022

Capacitor is one of the reliability-critical components in power converters. The lifetime of the capacitor decreases as the operating temperature increases, and power losses caused by capacitor current are the main cause of the capacitor temperature increase. Therefore, various studies are being conducted to improve the lifetime of the capacitor by reducing the current of DC-link capacitors. In this study, pulse width modulation methods proposed for improving the lifetime of DC-link capacitors of the three-level NPC inverter are comparatively analyzed. The lifetime evaluation of the DC-link capacitor under different modulation methods is performed at component level first and then system level by considering all capacitors by applying Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, their effects on the efficiency and THD of the output current are also considered.

• 한국산업융합학회 논문집
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.47-53
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• 2022

This paper proposes a method for selecting the capacitance of DC-link capacitors of inverters. In general, the DC-link capacitance of the inverter system must be considered for DC-link voltage, ripple current, switching frequency, ripple voltage, and pulse-width modulation techniques. Therefore, the appropriate capacitance can be determined by finding the rms and peak values of the ripple current of the capacitor. In this paper, the process of extracting the ripple current of DC-link capacitor is described in detail. In addition, the simple method for finding DC-link capacitor capacitance using the result value is presented through the simulations.

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제19권4호
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• pp.117-122
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• 2018

대용량 3상 시스템 에어컨은 최근 들어 소비 전력 저감을 위해 인버터 회로를 포함하고 있다. 인버터 회로는 교류를 다이오드를 통해 정류하고 DC-link 전원부 콘덴서에 의해 평활된 직류를 사용한다. 이 때 평활에 사용되는 DC-link 전원부 콘덴서는 전압 리플, 전류 리플 조건을 만족하기 위해 전해 콘덴서가 일반적으로 사용된다. 콘덴서의 용량을 줄이게 되면 회로부의 크기 및 무게, 비용을 줄일 수 있게 된다. 본 논문에서는 최소점 추정 PPL(Phase Locked Loop) 위상 제어와 평균 전압 d축 전류제어 기법을 조합하여 입력 리플 전류를 약 90% 저감하는 알고리즘을 제안한다. 입력 리플 전류의 감소로 인해 DC-link 콘덴서의 전류 리플도 감소하므로 콘덴서의 용량을 줄일 수 있지만 전해 콘덴서의 경우 등가 직렬 저항(ESR : Equivalent Series Resistance)이 크기 때문에 발열로 인한 수명이 한계를 가진다. 본 논문에서는 전해 콘덴서 대신 DC-link 단에 전류 리플을 고려한 필름 콘덴서를 선정하는 방법을 제안한다. 필름 콘데서의 정전 용량 선정, 내압 선정, RMS(Root Mean Square) 전류 용량, RMS 전류 주파수 해석을 고려해 콘덴서의 용량을 선정할 경우 1680uF의 전해 콘덴서를 20uF로 용량을 낮추어 설계함으로써 전원부 콘덴서의 크기 및 무게, 비용을 줄였으며 전동기 구동을 통해 동작을 확인하였다.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제16권5호
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• pp.1928-1938
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• 2016

The three-phase four-wire shunt active power filter (APF) is an effective method to solve the harmonic problem in three-phase four-wire power systems. In addition, it has two possible topologies, a four-leg inverter and a three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor. There are some studies investigating DC-link voltage control in three-phase four-wire APFs. However, when compared to the four-leg inverter topology, maintaining the balance between the DC-link upper and lower capacitor voltages becomes a unique problem in the three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor topology, and previous studies seldom pay attention to this fact. In this paper, the influence of the balance between the two DC-link voltages on the compensation performance, and the influence of the voltage balance controller on the compensation performance, are analyzed. To achieve the balance between the two DC-link capacitor voltages, and to avoid the adverse effect the voltage balance controller has on the APF compensation performance, a new DC-link voltage balance control strategy for the three-phase four-wire split-capacitor APF is proposed. Representative simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the analysis and the proposed DC-link voltage balance control strategy.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제59권4호
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• pp.378-383
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• 2010

Due to the large capacity and low cost, DC link electrolytic capacitors with of energy storage and voltage regulation are used for almost all types of power converter as the DC/AC inverter or DC/DC converter. Electrolytic capacitor, which is the most of the time affected by the aging effect, plays very important role for the power converter system quality and reliability. Therefore, this paper proposes a simple method to estimate the capacitance variation of an electrolytic capacitor in order to analyze the internal characteristic decrease and worn-out state of an electrolytic capacitor. Simulation results by using capacitor storage energy computation show the validity of the proposed capacitance estimation method.

• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제60권2호
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• pp.94-98
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• 2011

Electrolytic power capacitors today form essential components for virtually any power electronic system such as DC/DC converter or UPS. Frequently, electrolytic capacitors for DC link voltage smoothing are the key components which determine the life cycle of the whole unit and often are responsible for converter breakdown failures. In this paper, ethernet-based remote diagnosis system for DC voltage smoothing capacitor using DSP control board is developed. To estimate the status of the capacitor, the equivalent series resistor(ESR) of the component has to be determined. The ESR detection scheme is based on the determination of the capacitor ripple power losses calculated from DC link voltage/current measurement. Experimental results show the veridity and reliability of the proposed ethernet-based remote on-line capacitor diagnosis system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.27-33
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• 2010

This paper presents a bidirectional DC-DC converter suitable for low-voltage super capacitor-based electric energy storage systems. The DC-DC converter presented here consists of a full-bridge circuit and a current-fed push-pull circuit with a high frequency (HF) transformer-link. In order to reduce the device-conduction losses due to the large current of the super capacitor as well as unnecessary ringing, synchronous rectification is employed in the super capacitor-charging mode. A wide range of voltage regulation between the battery and the super capacitor can be realized by employing a Phase-Shifting (PS) Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) scheme in the full-bridge circuit for the super capacitor charging mode as well as the overlapping PWM scheme of the gate signals to the active power devices in the push-pull circuit for the super capacitor discharging mode. Essential performance of the bidirectional DC-DC converter is demonstrated with simulation and experiment results, and the practical effectiveness of the DC-DC converter is discussed.

• 전력전자학회:학술대회논문집
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• 전력전자학회 2011년도 전력전자학술대회
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• pp.370-371
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• 2011

This paper presents a control algorithm that minimizes the DC-link capacitance by decreasing the capacitor current. The capacitor current can be nullified by a feedback compensation term which is calculated from the power balance in the AC/DC converter. As a result, voltage variation in the DC-link is reduced further, which makes a large reduction in the size of DC-link capacitors which are expensive and have limitations in life time. Simulations are performed with two 80uF DC-link capacitors, which can be replaced by film capacitors.