Development of a 20-pulse AC-DC converter based in three-to-five phases transformer

Multipulse rectifiers are one of the solutions for current harmonics mitigation. In this paper, a novel 20-pulse full-wave AC-DC converter based in two three-to-five phases delta/zigzag transformers connected in series is proposed. A theoretical investigation of the proposed rectifier operation is presented. Afterwards this structure is simulated to obtain more real operation results. A prototype is implemented to feed isolated DC loads. To validate the theoretical analysis and the simulations, this prototype was tested to supply a 4kW resistive load and the experimental results are shown. IEEE-519 standard harmonic requirements are discussed for this topology. Also, a comparison with other multipulse rectifiers is presented in this paper.