Inductor design comparison of three-wire and four-wire three-phase voltage source converters in power factor correction applications

This paper studies the inductor design for three-wire and four-wire power factor correction converter (PFC). Designing the efficient inductor for this converter (regardless of connecting the midpoint to the ground) requires a comprehensive knowledge of the inductor current and voltage behavior. This paper investigates how changing three-wire PFC to four-wire counterpart influences the inductor design in terms of size, losses, and overall efficiency of the converter. Therefore, the inductor current and voltage waveforms are analyzed and generalized in both cases for one switching cycle to build a foundation for comparison. Accordingly, the analyses are able to interpret the differences between both configurations and explain the core losses and the copper losses of inductors, especially those caused by the high frequency ac current ripple. Finally, two inductors are designed for a 5 kW PFC experimental setup. The experimental results which are performed for three-wire and four-wire PFC show a good match with the analyses.