Modeling and Analysis of the Dead-Time Effects in Parallel PWM Two-Level Three-Phase Voltage-Source Inverters

This paper addresses modeling and analysis of the dead-time effects in parallel pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) two-level three-phase inverters. The main objective is to gain understanding of how the effects caused by the necessary blanking time, the finite turn-on and turn-off times of the switching devices, and the forward voltage drops of the switching devices and the antiparallel diodes, i.e., the dead-time effects, influence the circulating current generation between the parallel-connected units. To meet this objective, a circulating current model taking these effects into account is developed for the parallel connection of n units. The model, which is an average model by nature, can be used to study the circulating current behavior with different types of PWM methods and to estimate the resulting circulating current values when there are differences in the dead-time effect parameters. In other words, the model provides an analytical way to consider the significance of these effects. To verify the validity of the developed model, the circuit simulation and experimental results are shown and compared with the analytical results. The illustrations show that the results obtained with the developed model are in good agreement with the circuit simulations and the experiments.