Analysis of Multilevel PWM Converter Based on FLC Modules for an AC Traction Application

Sebastian Stynski(1), Jon San-Sebastian(2), Mariusz Malinowski(3), Ion Etxeberria-Otadui(4)

(2,4)

Warsaw University of Technology, Institute of Control and Power Electronics, Warsaw, Poland IKERLAN-IK4 Technological Research Centre, Control Engineering and Power Electronics, Mondragn, Spain (1) stynskis@isep.pw.edu.pl, (2)jsansebastian@ikerlan.es , (3)malin@isep.pw.edu.pl, (4)ietxeberria@ikerlan.es

(1,3)

Abstract-The paper presents simulation of multilevel PWM front-end converter based on 5-level flying capacitor (FLC) modules for an AC traction application. Two possibilities of parallel connected FLC modules with common and separated DC bus (where each module can provide different DC voltage level) have been analyzed in this paper. Several simulations are presented for both solutions, what confirm usefulness of the proposed approach for high power traction application.

II. SINGLE-PHASE 5-LEVEL FLC CONVERTER A. Description of 5-level FLC converter Fig. 1 presents typical module of single-phase 5-level FLC converter. All possible switching states for that converter are shown in Table I. However some of them can be omitted (not indicated by grey color in Table I), what gives minimization of switching losses. It gives only one switching between state generating voltages E/2 and 0 as well as 0 and E/2 e.g. 0100 to 0000 or 0111 to 1111 [6]. Table I shows that in cell b two upper (Tb1, Tb2) or two lower (Tb1, Tb2) transistors are switched simultaneously, what not provide voltage variation on capacitor Cb. Switching states used in capacitor voltage balancing in cell a are shown in Table II. An example of modulation for 5-level module is shown in Fig. 2. It is typical Level Shifted - Phase Disposition Modulation (LS-PDM) method described in many publications e.g. [7]. B. Control strategy Control strategy for 5-level FLC front-end converter is based on an inner current control loop and an outer voltage control loop. Voltage control loop provide sufficient dynamics, due to load variations and control current loop provide unit power factor operation. A basic block scheme of the control method is shown in Fig. 3.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Single phase AC/DC converters connected to the grid trough step down transformer are widely used in high voltage AC traction applications. The main requirements for such dedicated converters are [1]: low harmonic distortion of grid current; sufficient dynamics, due to load variations; unity power factor operation. Classically to fulfill these requirements parallel connected H-bridge converters are used. This topology with interleaved modulation allows limiting switching frequency and increasing transferred power by dividing currents between two modules. Two main multilevel converters [2, 3]: diode-clamped (DCC) and flying-capacitor (FLC) starts to be attractive in AC traction applications [4, 5] in recent days. This kind of converters in comparison to H-bridge has several advantages: lower harmonic distortion; reduced voltage stress on every switch; output voltage and power can be doubled; smaller passive filter requirements. This paper presents simulation of different topologies of multilevel PWM front-end converter based on 5-level FLC modules. Such modules can be parallel connected in order to obtain the same advantages as H-bridge converter. The paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the single-phase 5-level FLC converter with example of modulation and control. Section III analyzes two solutions of parallel connected FLC modules. Section IV presents simulation realized in Saber as well as comparison between analyzed topologies and H-bridge converter.

Fig. 1. Scheme of 5-level FLC front-end converter for AC traction application.

TABLE I SWITCHING STATES FOR 5-LEVEL CONVERTER Output Voltage Sa1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 Switching States Sa2 Sb1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 Sb2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1

+E

+E

TABLE II SWITCHING STATES USED IN CAPACITOR VOLTAGE BALANCING IN CELL A Switching States Output Voltage Capacitor Voltage Output Current Sa1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 Sa2 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 Sb1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 Sb2 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1

The commanded DC link voltage UDC* is compared with measured UDC value. Error is delivered to PI controller, which generates the amplitude of commanded current iDC*. However 100Hz oscillations on UDC derived from the single phase 50Hz line current are disturbing the reference iDC* through second order harmonic. To prevent this effect a low pass filter is applied on DC link voltage error. The delay introduced by the filter involves that the dynamics of the voltage loop should be reduced, as well as consequently the DC link voltage transient error should be higher. However, response of the load step change at low switching frequency presented on Fig. 4 in both cases is similar, because of the voltage loop bandwidth limitation. There are few methods to improve dynamic of the system by adding to iDC* feed-forward as DC load current or output power but it provide additional current sensors [5]. Unity power factor can be achieved if the reference line current iline* is equal to: sin2 where: sin(t) is the angle of line voltage Uline.
a)

(1)

+E

Uca > E
2
Uca < E

2
2

Uca > E

2
2

Uca < E

I I I I I I I I

>0 <0 >0 <0 >0 <0 >0 <0

b)

Fig. 2. Modulation of 5-level converter. From the top: reference voltage with carrier signals, output voltage uf

Fig. 3. Block scheme of control method.

Fig. 4. Voltage control loop under step change of load: a) without filter, b) with filter. From the top: DC link voltage UDC, commanded current iDC*, line current iline.

Output signal iline* is compared with measured line current iline and error is delivered to resonant controller (RC). RC structure (similar to PI controller) consist of proportional and resonant term, which contains a double imaginary pole adjusted to the fundamental line voltage Uline frequency in order to achieve an infinite gain at selected frequency. RC in comparison to PI controller is able to eliminate not only the amplitude error of the current but also the phase error and guaranties a zero static error at selected frequency. Scheme of current control loop is shown in Fig. 5. Discrete transfer function H(z) is calculated as:

III. PARALLEL CONNECTION OF TWO FLC MODULES A. PWM front-end converter with common DC bus Fig. 7 presents PWM front-end converter based on parallel connection on two FLC modules with common DC bus. Such solution provides low harmonic distortion for interleaved modulation (9-levels of converter voltage from transformer primary side point of view), as well as gives high reliability in case of one module failure at reduced power. B. PWM front-end converter with separated DC bus Fig. 8 presents PWM front-end converter based on parallel connection on two FLC modules with separated DC bus. This solution has same advantages as previous and can obtain 13levels if one Udc is twice higher than the other. IV. SIMULATION RESULTS To study the operation of the PWM front-end converters, the FLC modules have been simulated using the SABER Designer software. The main electrical parameters of the power circuit and control data are given in Table III. Simplified simulation model for parallel connection of two FLC modules topologies with common and separated DC bus are shown in Fig. 9. Capacitance CFC of the flying capacitors to reach 5% of maximum voltage ripple Vc is calculated as [9]: , (5)

(2)

Fig. 5c presents discrete current control loop with calculation delay of one sampling period. Its very important to take into consideration effect of calculation delay, especially when the commutation frequencies are very low. The continuous CR(s) and discrete CR(z) transfer functions of a RC (considering a cosine implementation) are:

(3) (4)

Fig. 6 presents voltage control loop. PI controller for voltage loop and RC for current loop were tuned using a frequency response approach [8]. The kp and ki gains for both controllers are calculated in order to guarantee sufficient phase margin for the system and to avoid close loop high resonances (in respect to sampling and computational delays). RC output with feedback from Uline is used for switching signals generation (described in section A).

where: Iline,RMS amplitude of line current, fs switching frequency. Typical values of short circuit impedance for traction transformer are between 20 and 30% of nominal impedance. In this case secondary side short circuit impedance is calculated as 28% of nominal impedance.

Fig. 5. Current control loop: a) full scheme, b) equivalent scheme based on assumption that converter gain is equal one, c) discrete scheme.

Fig. 6. Simplified voltage control loop based on assumption that current control loop gain is equal one

Fig. 7. Parallel connection of two FLC modules with common DC bus for AC traction application.

A. PWM front-end converter with common DC bus Fig. 10 presents steady state operation of one module at nominal load. Second module provides same current amplitude and power. Steady state operation of entire frontend converter is shown in Fig. 11. Comparison of classical modulation and interleaved modulation are shown in Fig. 12. THD of the grid current at nominal load for classical modulation is equal 5,67% but for interleaved modulation is equal 1,49%. When H-bridge modules are used for the same simulation parameters 6,58% and 18,89% of grid current THD factor can be obtained respectively. Operation of front-end converter during step change of load from 10% to 100% and from 100% to 10% verifying the validity of proposed system is shown in Fig. 13. Control algorithm guaranties sufficient dynamics, due to load variations.

Fig. 8. Parallel connection of two FLC modules topology with separated DC bus for an AC traction application. TABLE III PARAMETERS USED IN SIMULATION Transformer power / primary side Grid voltage / primary side Grid current / primary side Transformer power / secondary sides Line voltage / secondary sides Line current / secondary sides Primary leakage inductance Primary winding resistance Magnetizing inductance Core loss resistance Secondary leakage inductance Secondary winding resistance Switching frequency Capacitance of FC Parallel resistance of FC Capacitance of DC link capacitor DC link voltage Sn1 Ugrid igrid,RMS Sn2 Uline1=Uline2 iline1,RMS=iline2,RMS L1 R1 Lm Rfe L2-1=L2-2 R2-1=R2-2 fs Ca=Cb=Cc=Cd Ra=Rb=Rc=Rd C1=C2 UDC1=UDC2 1MVA 25kV/50Hz 40A 500kVA each 950V/50Hz 526A 59.7mH 3.125 59.7H 62.5k 1.6mH 30m 1kHz 11.7mF 10 k 23.4mF 1800V

Fig. 10. Steady state operation of one module at nominal load. From the top: line voltage Uline1, line current iline1, converter voltage Uconv1, DC link voltage UDC, voltage variation on capacitor Ca, voltage variation on capacitor Cb.

Fig. 9. Simplified simulation model for parallel connection of two FLC modules topology with: a) common DC bus; b) separated DC bus.

Fig. 11. Steady state operation of front-end converter at nominal load. From the top: grid voltage Ugrid, grid current igrid, line current iline1, line current iline2.

a)

Operation of front-end converter during different step changes of the load is shown in Fig. 15. Fig. 16 presents possibility to obtain 13-levels of converter by twice bigger DC voltage on one module (in this case 3.4kV) with THD of grid current equal 3,71%. Such solution can be used to supply cascade inverter which usually need different voltages.

b)

Fig. 12. Comparison between modulation techniques: a) classical modulation, b) interleaved modulation. From the top: grid current igrid, total converter voltage Uconv,TOTAL, converter voltage Uconv1, converter voltage Uconv2. Fig. 14. Steady state operation of front-end converter at 100% load on one module and 50% load on second module. From the top: voltage Ugrid, grid current igrid, line voltage Uline1, line current iline1, converter voltage Uconv1, DC link voltage UDC1, line voltage Uline2, line current iline2, converter voltage Uconv2, DC link voltage UDC2.

Fig. 13. Operation of front-end converter during step change of load. From the top: grid voltage Ugrid, grid current igrid, line current iline1, line current iline2, DC link voltage UDC.

B. PWM front-end converter with separated DC bus Steady state operation of entire front-end converter at different load for each module is shown in Fig. 14.

Fig. 15. Operation of front-end converter during step change of load. From the top: grid voltage Ugrid, grid current igrid, line current iline1, DC link voltage UDC2, line current iline2, DC link voltage UDC2.

REFERENCES
[1] [2] A. Capasso, The power quality concern in railway electrification studies, Proceedings on 8th International Conference on Harmonics and Power Quality, Vol. 2, 1998, pp. 647-652. D. Krug, M. Malinowski, S. Bernet, Design and Comparison of Medium Voltage Multi-Level Converters for Industry Application, International Conference on Industrial Application IAS04, Seattle, USA, 2004, pp. 781-790. D. Krug, S. Bernet, S. S. Fazel, K. Jalili, M. Malinowski, Comparison of 2.3kV Medium-Voltage Multilevel Converters for Industrial Medium-Voltage Drives IEEE Trans. On Ind. Electronics, Vol. 54, No. 6, 2007, pp. 2979-2992. S. Bernet, Recent developments of high power converters for industry and traction applications, IEEE Trans. On Ind. Electronics, Vol. 15, No. 6, 2000, pp. 1102-1117. I. Etxeberria-Otadui, A. Lopez-de-Heredia, J. San-Sebastian, H. Gaztaaga, U. Viscarret, M. Caballero, Analysis of a H-NPC topology for an AC Traction Front-End Converter, 13th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference EPE-PEMC2008, Pozna, Poland, 2008, pp. 1578-1584. M. Malinowski, S. Styski, M. P. Kazmierkowski, Single-Phase Cascade Multilevel PWM Converter Based on FLC Modules with LC Output Sine Filter, IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics ISIE08, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2008, pp. 335-340. J. Rodriguez, J.S. Lai, F. Z. Peng, Multilevel inverters: A survey of topologies, controls and applications IEEE Trans. On Ind. Electronics, Vol. 49, No. 4, Aug. 2002, pp. 424-738. A. Lopez-de-Heredia, H. Gaztaaga, I. Etxeberria-Otadui, S. Bacha, X. Guillaud, Analysis of Multi-Resonant Current Control Structures and Tuning Methods IEEE 32nd Annual Conference on Industrial Electronics IECON06, Paris, France, 2006, pp.2156-2161. S. S. Fazel, S. Bernet, D. Krug, K. Jalili, Design and Comparison of 4kV Neutral-Point-Clamped, Flying-Capacitor, and Series-Connected HBridge Multilevel Converters IEEE Trans. On Ind. Electronics, Vol. 43, No. 4, July-Aug. 2007, pp. 1032-1040.

[3]

[4] [5]

Fig. 16. Interleaved modulation for twice bigger DC bus voltage for one module. From the top: grid current igrid, total converter voltage Uconv,TOTAL, converter voltage Uconv1, converter voltage Uconv2.

[6]

V. CONCLUSIONS The paper presents simulation study of multilevel PWM front-end converter based on 5-level FLC modules for an AC traction application. Comparison regarding cascade H-bridge converter shows that proposed solution is attractive for some traction applications because of more converter voltage levels as well as reduction of grid current THD. Inductance of secondary winding can be minimized in respect to higher number of levels what allows decreasing total cost of converter installation. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by Polish Ministry of Science and High Education under project: N 510085433.
[7] [8]

[9]