ELEC-E8403 Converter Techniques Exam 17.10.

2016

1. A six-pulse thyristor rectifier is fed from three-phase network with 400 V line-to-line voltage.
It is charging a 440 V battery. a) By using the graph below determine the conduction mode of
the rectifier. Load emf coefficient is the ratio of load voltage to peak input line-to-line voltage.
Is the charging current continuous or discontinuous? (2 points) b) Battery resistance is 5,3 
and 54 mH inductor is added on the dc side. Derive equation for the dc voltage and calculate
the value of the dc current. (3 points)

2. A six-pulse thyristor rectifier has a load of R = 55 Ω and the dc current can be assumed to be
ideal dc (large inductance). The line-to-line supply voltage is 400 V, frequency 50 Hz and
the delay angle of the rectifier is 45°. a) Calculate active and reactive power taken from the
supply system (2 points) b) The inductance of the supply system is 1,2 mH per phase. What
is the active power now? It can be assumed that commutation causes an additional delay
equal to half of the commutation angle. How large is the reactive power in this case? (3
points)

3. A single-phase direct ac-ac converter, i.e. cycloconverter operates with magnitude control
ratio M = 0,8. Draw the firing angle variations, when the load power factor is a) 1, b) 0,7
and c) -1 (load machine operates as a generator).

4. A three-phase voltage-sourced dc-ac converter supplies a balanced three-phase load. a) Derive

an equation for the voltage vnN from the load neutral n to the negative dc bus N of the converter
as a function of the pole voltages vaN, vbN, and vcN. Note that the sum of phase voltages is zero,
i.e. van + vbn + vcn = 0. Derive equations for the phase voltages and the line-to-line voltages as
functions of the pole voltages. b) When the converter operates in the square-wave (six-step)
mode, draw the waveforms of the pole voltages, line-to-line voltages, and phase voltages. c)
Derive equation and calculate the fundamental component and harmonics of the phase
voltages when the dc voltage is 540 V.

5. Pulse width modulation (PWM) is used in different converters. Present different PWM
methods used in voltage sourced inverters (VSI). Explain the main principles of the methods
and discuss shortly advantages and disadvantages on using PWM.