A simple snubber configuration for three-level GTO inverters

Author

Sung, Jeong-Hyoun ; Nam, Kwanghee

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., POSTECH Univ., Pohang, South Korea

Volume

14

Issue

2

fYear

1999

fDate

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

246

Lastpage

257

Abstract

A simple snubber configuration for three-level gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) inverters is proposed. The proposed snubber has a single resistor per arm for stored energy dissipation, while the conventional RLD/RCD snubber contains six. This implies that the proposed snubber needs only one chopper circuit per arm for snubber energy recovery. This helps reduce the size, cost, and number of components. Besides the single resistor, the proposed snubber requires two less diodes per arm than the RLD/RCD snubber. Furthermore, the proposed snubber resolves the voltage imbalance problem between inner and outer GTOs without additional components. We have analyzed the proposed circuits and proven its performance through simulations and experiments

Keywords

choppers (circuits); invertors; snubbers; thyristor convertors; chopper circuit; cost reduction; gate turn-off thyristor; resistor; size reduction; snubber configuration; snubber energy recovery; stored energy dissipation; three-level GTO inverters; voltage imbalance; Choppers; Circuits; Costs; Diodes; Energy dissipation; Energy resolution; Inverters; Resistors; Snubbers; Thyristors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/63.750177

Filename

750177