Examination in POWER ELECTRONICS (EJ2300)

Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 08:00 – 13:00 (Questions 09:00, 10:30, and 12:00)
Exam responsible: Hans-Peter Nee, 070 – 695 34 70
Permitted aid: Calculator, mathematical handbook, and three-phase paper.
The requirement to pass is 15 points. Problems 1–5 give 3 points each and problems 6–8 give 5 points each.
For full marks, the solutions have to be readable and the line of thought has to be recognizable!
Do not forget to scale axes of graphs!
Only one problem per paper! (Because different persons will mark different problems!)

1. In the figure below, a plot of the output voltage waveform of a high-voltage inverter
is shown. The horizontal axis represents the time in seconds. Determine
(approximately) the frequency of the fundamental component of the waveform.

2. The maximum permissible duty ratio of the forward converter is given by

1
Dmax  , where N1 and N 3 are the numbers of turns in two of the
1  N 3 / N1
windings of the transformer. What happens if the duty ratio is increased above this
value?
If the value of N 3 is small compared to N1 , high values of Dmax can be achieved.
Is this choice associated with any drawback?

3. A ZVS resonant-switch dc-dc converter has a voltage wavefrom across the switch
as shown in the figure below. The angular resonance frequency is given by
0  1/ LrCr . A design engineer is given the task to reduce the maximum voltage
across the switch without changing the resonance frequency. What can the engineer
do if Z0  Lr / Cr ?

vsw
Zo I o
Vd
t
Examination in EJ2300 POWER ELECTRONICS 2014-01-07, HPN

4. A three-phase diode rectifier has a completely smooth load current of 75 A.

Calculate the output voltage if the supply voltage is 400 V/50 Hz, and the
commutation inductance is 1 mH.
5. The unfiltered output voltage of a dc-dc converter has a dc-component of 48 V and a
180 kHz symmetrical square wave component with the RMS-value 48 V. Calculate
the RMS-value of the output voltage.
6. A three-phase switch-mode inverter for reactive power compensation is only
connected to a capacitor on the dc side (see the left figure below). In the right figure
below, the triangular carrier and the reference voltages for the three phases during
one switching cycle are shown. The reference value for phase A is 0.5 and the
reference values of the other two phases are both -0.25. The output voltages from the
inverter are generated in the common way when using sinusoidal PWM. During this
switching cycle, the current in phase A is 100 A and in the other two phases the
currents are – 50 A (with respect to the definitions in the left figure below).
Draw the waveform of iCap and calculate the average value during the switching
cycle.

1
iCap

0.5

iA
iB t
iC
-0.25

7. A 400 V/50 Hz three-phase system is loaded with an ideal three-phase diode rectifier
having a completely smooth output current of 50 A. An ideal three-phase thyristor
converter is connected in parallel with the diode rectifier. The output current of the
thyristor converter is also 50 A and completely smooth, but the output power of the
thyristor converter is zero.
a) Draw the waveforms of the input currents to the two converters and the the sum of
the two currents. (2p)
b) Calculate the power factor for the total load. (3p)

8. A single-phase diode rectifier bridge is fed from the 230 V/50 Hz line. The load
consists of an inductor (1,0 H) and a resistor (10 ).
a) Calculate the peak-to-peak ripple in the output current assuming that the voltage
across the resistor is constant. (3p)
b) Draw the waveforms of the ripple components of both the output voltage and output
current. The drawing must be made with care such that the slopes and extreme values
are reasonably right in various points. (2p)
Examination in EJ2300 POWER ELECTRONICS 2014-01-07, HPN

Solutions

1. Using the grid in the figure, it is easily found that the fundamental cycle time is 0,02 s.
This corresponds to a fundamental frequency of 50 Hz.

2. Zero-voltage switching is preferable at high switching speeds because of the stray

capacitance of the switch. If zero-current switching is used the voltage across the switch
might have to change abruptly. This means that the stray capacitance of the switch has to
be charged or discharged abruptly. This can only be achieved with a high current spike
with associated losses. The energy of the stray capacitance may, for instance, be dissipated
in the switch at turn-on.

3. One way to proceed is to reduce Z 0 , but this has to be done without changing  0 .
If the product of Lr and Cr is kept constant,  0 will remain unchanged.
So, if Lr is reduced and Cr is increased such that the product is still constant,
Z 0 can be reduced without changing  0 . With a reduced value of Z 0 , the maximum
voltage across the switch will be reduced. Comment: A drawback with this method is that
the minimum output current in order to stay in soft-switching operation is increased.
Therefore, this method only works if the current never goes low.

3 3 75
4. Vd  1,35 VLL     Ls  I d  1,35  400   2 50   518 V
  1000

5. VRMS  482  482  68 V

6. The capacitor has a current only if at least two output voltages are different. When all
three output voltages are identical, the capacitor is disconnected. Using this, iCap can be
drawn.
Examination in EJ2300 POWER ELECTRONICS 2014-01-07, HPN

0.5

-0.25

vo
A
B, C

iCap 100 A

By studying the drawing, the average value of iCap is found to be 37.5 A.

7. a)

i diode

ithyr

i tot
 Examination in EJ2300 POWER ELECTRONICS 2014-01-07, HPN

P
7.b) P.F . 
3  Vs  I s

1 2 1  2 1
Is     T  50 2   T  100 2    50 2   100 2  57,735 A
T 3 6  3 6

Only the diode rectifier consumes active power. This active power equals the output power
of the diode rectifier.
P  1,35 VLL  I d  1,35  400  50  27000 W
27000
P.F .   0,68
3  230  57,735

8. a) The mean value of the output voltage is

 /2
1 2vˆ
Vd    vˆ s cos( )dα  s
π  / 2 π

During the time when the instantaneous voltage is higher than the mean value, the current
will increase monotonically. This means that the peak-to-peak ripple can be calculated by
integration during this time. The instantaneous output voltage equals the mean value two
times per 100 Hz-cycle.
2vˆ s
vˆ s cos( )   0  50.46
π
50, 46
1 1 vˆ
I d   vˆ s cos( t )dt   s  2  sin(50,46)  1,6 A
L 50,46 L 

b) The output voltage ripple is given by

2
v  vˆ s cos( t )   vˆ s

The current ripple is obtained in the same way as in a)
Examination in EJ2300 POWER ELECTRONICS 2014-01-07, HPN

150
150
100

50

v 50
i

100

150

200

250 250
90 0 90 180 270 360 450
90 i 450

0.8

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

id 0
i

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 1
90 0 90 180 270 360 450
90 i 450