Over View of Multi level inverters

By
Dr.K.Krishnaveni Professor and Head Dept. of EEE ,CBIT
3/5/2013 EEE Dept. CBIT, Hyderabad

OUTLINE
Introduction Various types of multi level Inverters
--Diode clamped --Capacitor clamped --Cascaded

Switching logic in multilevel inverters Comparison Single phase H-bridge(special case) Applications Conclusion
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Introduction
Wave forms of practical inverters are non-sinusoidal & contain certain number of harmonics.

For low and medium power applications square wave or quasi square wave voltage may be acceptable.
But for high power applications, sinusoidal wave forms with low distortion are required. Harmonic contents present in the output of a dc-ac inverter can be eliminated by employing a filtering circuit or by employing PWM technique.

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 Use of filters has the disadvantage of large size and cost, PWM technique reduces the filter requirement to minimum or zero depending on the type of application. Traditional two-level PWM Inverter have some drawbacks ,namely 1.More switching losses. 2.Intro.. of large amount of higher order harmonics. 3.large dv/dt rating. 4.Common mode voltages. 5.Problem of voltage sharing series connected devices. 6.Requirement of switches with very low turn-on and turn-off times.

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 To overcome the mentioned problems Multi-level Inverters can be employed. In addition to the above they offer the advantage of less switching stress on the device for high voltage, high power applications with reduced harmonic content at low switching frequencies. This seminar presents the basic description of 2-level,3-level and 5-level inverters (and also presents the methodology for switching loss calculations). Modulation technique for 2,3,5 level Inverters & finally comparison will be shown for the topologies on the basis of switching losses &THD at different switching frequencies.
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Switching circuits of Multi level Inverters

One phase leg of an inverter with (a) two levels, (b) three levels, and (c) n levels .
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Switching circuits of Multi level Inverters

Output voltage profile of (a) 2-level, (b) 3-level, and (c) 5-level inverter.

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Basics of two-level Inverters

It is the most widely used topology in various low and medium power applications. The full-bridge configuration of three-phase VSI is shown in the below figure.

Figure 1: Three-phase two-level inverter.

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 The switching logic to obtain the output voltage for a 120 degrees mode of operation is shown in below table

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 This topology can be used at very high switching frequencies to obtain low THD by using PWM technique.

Disadvantages in two-Level:
Power devices are to be connected in series-parallel to achieve a large power capability, but they suffer from static and dynamic voltage sharing problems in series & parallel connection of power devices. High rate of change of voltage due to synchronous commutation of series devices. In addition to above, high switching frequencies and harmonic contents in inverter output voltage.

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Types of Multilevel Inverters

Commonly employed multilevel inverter topologies are: 1.Diode clamped 2.Capacitor clamped 3.Cascaded Multi-Level In all these topologies, the output voltage is synthesized for several levels of input voltages obtained from several capacitors connected across the dc bus. In capacitor clamped both real and reactive power can be controlled, but it suffers from high switching losses due to real power transfer & also it requires high no. of storage capacitors at higher levels. Even a cascaded inverter uses a large no. of separate dc sources for each of the bridges.
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Advantages/merits of diode clamped

Hence the diode clamped topology is considered for the study, In this all the devices are switched at fundamental frequency resulting in low switching losses and high efficiency. Another advantage of this topology are controlled reactive power flow between source and load ,much better dynamic voltage sharing among switching devices. The control logic is simple ,especially for back- to- back inter tie connections of two systems. However, it requires a large number of clamping diodes for a large number of output voltage levels.

To produce an m-level output phase voltage, (m-1) switches are required for each half phase leg, a total of (m-1) dc link capacitors for energy storage and(m-1)*(m-2) clamping diodes for each phase leg
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Three-Level Diode Clamped Multilevel Inverter (DCMLI)

Three-phase

diode clamped three-level inverter (neutral point clamped) topology is shown in below figure

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Capacitor clamped Multilevel Inverters

1. For voltage level Vdc/2 , switches S1and S2 need to be turned on 2. For Vdc/2, switches S1and S2 need to be turned on 3. For the 0 level, either pair (S1,S2 ) or (S2,S1 ) needs to be turned on. 4. D1and D1 diodes clamp the switch voltage to half the level of dc voltage.

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Three-Level Diode Clamped Multilevel Inverter (DCMLI)

Three-phase

diode clamped three-level inverter (neutral point clamped) topology is shown in below figure

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 The circuit consists of two dc link capacitors, 12 power switches and six clamping diodes. The middle point of the dc bus capacitor is known as neutral point n. The main feature of this topology is clamping diodes that clamp the switch voltage to half of the dc bus voltage, reducing the voltage stress of the switching device. The output voltage has three different states: +, 0 and and the corresponding output phase voltages are +Vdc/2, 0 and -Vdc/2.
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 Switching states to synthesize the output voltages for phase A are defined in below table

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Five-Level DCMLI

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Five-Level DCMLI

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Five-Level DCMLI

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 It consists of 24 power switches and 36 clamping diodes. The DC bus has four capacitors for a DC bus voltage Vdc. The voltage across each capacitor is Vdc/4.

Thus, the voltage stress across each device will be limited to

Vdc/4 through the clamping diode. The below table shows the switching combinations and corresponding output phase voltage levels where switching state 1 represents the switch is in on condition and state 0 indicates the switch is in off condition.

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Switching Logic for Capacitor Clamped

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Capacitor Clamped Multilevel Inverters

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Switching Logic for Capacitor Clamped

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Switching Logic for Capacitor Clamped

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Cascaded multilevel inverter topology

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Switching Loss Calculations

Consider a single MOSFET switch connected across a dc voltage of value Vdc.

Current through switch during on time is considered as Idc.

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 Switching losses can be calculated from the turn-on and turn-off characteristics of the devices. Instantaneous voltage and current during turn on time tc(on) are V(t)=Vdc-(Vdc-Von)*(t/tc(on)); 0<ttc(on) (1) i(t)=Idc*(t/tc(on)); 0<ttc(on) (2)

Instantaneous power during the time interval tc(on) is

P(t)=V(t)*i(t) ={Vdc-(Vdc-Von)*(t/ton)}{Idc*(t/tc(on))} ={Vdc*Idc*(t/tc(on)}-(Vdc-Von)*(t2/tc(on)2)

(3)

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and energy dissipated during this interval is tc(on), Ec,on=[{Vdc*Idc*(t/tc(on))}-(Vdc-Von)*(t2/tc(on)2)]dt 0 to tc(on)

Ec,on=(Vdc*Idc*tc(on))/2-(Vdc-Von)*Idc*tc(on)/3 =(Vdc*Idcton)/6-(Von*Idc*tc(on))/3

(4)

and during turn-off transition, of t c(off), the current falls from Idc to zero and the Von rises linearly to Vdc. The instantaneous voltage and current during this period are V(t)=Von+(Vdc-Von)/tc(off) i(t)=Idc-Idc/tc(off)
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(5) (6)
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The instantaneous power dissipated during the interval tc(off) is

P(t)=V(t)*i(t)

={Von+(Vdc-Von)*(t/tc(off))}*{Idc-Idc*(t/tc(off))} =Von*Idc+(Vdc-Von)*Idc*(t/tc(off))-Von*Idc*(t/tc(off))-(Vdc-Von)*Idc*(t2/tc(off)2) Hence, the energy dissipated can be found as tc(off),

Ec,off=[Von*Idc+(Vdc-Von)*Idc*(t/tc(off))-Von*Idc*(t/tc(on))-(VdcVon)*Idc*(t2/tc(off)2)]dt 0 tc(on) =(Vdc*Idc*tc(off))/6-(Von*Idc*tc(off))/3 (7)

(8)

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 With a switching frequency of Fs, the average switching loss in the switch during each transition of turn on and turn off can be found as Pc,on=(Vdc*Idc*tc(on)/Ts)/6+(Von*Idc*tc(on)/Ts)/3 (9) Pc,off=(Vdc*Idc*tc(off)/Ts)/6-(Von*Idc*tc(off)/Ts)/3 (10)

Hence, the average switching loss Psw in the switch is Psw=(1/6)*Vdc*Idc*{tc(on)+tc(off)}/Ts+(1/3)*Von*Idc*{tc(on)+tc(off)}/Ts

(11)

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 Eqn. (11) shows that the switching power loss in a semiconductor switch varies linearly with the switching frequency and switching times.

Therefore, with the devices having short switching times, it is possible to operate them at a higher switching frequency thus avoiding excessive switching power losses in the device

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Modulation technique
The modulation or controlled techniques are classified below

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 SPWM technique is considered for the study in this project. In SPWM technique a triangular carrier wave is compared with the sinusoidal reference wave at fundamental output frequency. The below figure shows the generation of switching pulses for power device S1 of the two level inverter

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Figure 6: Pulse generation for two-level inverter (for switch S1).

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 The below figure shows the switching pulses for power devices Sa1 and Sa2 of three level inverter

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 The below figure shows the switching pulses for power devices Sa1,Sa2,Sa3 and Sa4 of five level inverter

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Simulation study of DCMLI with SPWM

Simulation studies have been performed on two, three and five diode clamped three phase inverters
Discrete , Ts = 5e-005 s powergui
[voltages ] Goto

Scope Subsystem

A B

Vabc Iabc a b c

Series RLC Load Series RLC Load 1 Series RLC Load 2

Three -Phase V-I Measurement 3

.

1Three -phase two -level inverter

Display

s ignal THD

Total Harmonic Distorsion Vin voltages ] From Total Harmonic Distorsion 1 Iin Von From 8
s ignal THD s ignal THD

From 3 Product

-K Gain Display 1
InMean

From 2 Add Product 2 Iin From 4 Product 1 -K Gain 1

Mean Value

Scope 3

Scope 1 Total Harmonic Distorsion 2

[s211 ] From 7

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Discrete , Ts = 5e-005 s powergui

Vin Display From 3 Product Iin

signal THD

-KGain Display 1
InMean

Von From 8

From 2 Add Product 2 Iin From 4 Product 1 -KGain 1

Mean Value

Scope 3

Total Harmonic Distorsion

s211 From 7

voltages ] From

signal THD

Total Harmonic Distorsion 1

[voltages ] Goto

signal THD

Scope 1 Total Harmonic Distorsion 2

Scope

A Vabc Iabc B a b C c
Three -Phase V-I Measurement 3

Series RLC Load Series RLC Load 1 Series RLC Load 2

Subsystem
c

Three -phase three -level diode clamped inverter

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Discrete , Ts = 5e-005 s powergui

Scope [voltages ]
C

Goto [currents ] Goto 1

Subsystem
b

A Vabc Iabc B a b C c
Three -Phase V-I Measurement 3

Series RLC Load Series RLC Load 1 Series RLC Load 2

Display

A signal THD

Total Harmonic Distorsion

voltages ] From

signal THD

Three -phase five -level diode clamped inverter

. Vin

Total Harmonic Distorsion 1 Von

signal THD

From 3 Product Iin From 2

-K Gain Display 1
InMean

Scope 1 Total Harmonic Distorsion 2

From 8 s11 From 7 Product 2 Iin From 4 Product 1 -K Gain 1

Add

Mean Value

Scope 3

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Out put voltage of two level inverter

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Frequency spectrum

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Pulse generation of two level inverter

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O/P voltage of three level inverter

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Frequency spectrum

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Pulse generation for three level

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Output voltage of five level inverter

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Harmonic order

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Pulse generation for five level

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THD and Switching losses

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Variation of switching losses and THD with carrier frequency for the three-level inverter.
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Variation of switching losses and THD with carrier frequency for a five-level inverter.
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Variation of switching losses for two-level, threelevel and five-level inverters with carrier frequency.

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Variation of percentage THD for two-level, threelevel and five-level inverter with carrier frequency.
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References
1.F. Z. Peng & J. S. 1. Lai, Multilevel Converters - A new breed of power converters, IEEE Transaction on Industry Applications, Vol. 32, No. 3, May/June, 1996, pp. 509-517. 2. Jose Rodriguez, J. S. Lai & F. Z. Peng, Multilevel Inverters: A Survey of Topologies, Controls, and Applications, IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 49, No. 4, Aug 2002, pp. 724-738. 3. Mohan Ned, Undeland T.M. & Robbins W.P., Power Electronics: Converters, Applications and Design, John Wiley and Sons, Second Edition, 2001. 4. G. Bhuvaneswari & Nagaraju, Multilevel Inverters A Comparative Study, IETE Journal of Research, Vol. 51, No.2, Mar-Apr 2005, pp.
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