Design procedure of firing angles for harmonic reduction in a thyristor-controlled reactor by asymmetrical firing control

A thyristor-controlled reactor (TCR) has been investigated and developed for a VAR compensator. Its application to industry is put into practice. This system has, however, inherently a disadvantage of generating many lower-order harmonic currents. Some countermeasures to reduce harmonics have been proposed up to the present day. The TCR based on an asymmetrical firing control (AFC-type TCR) has been already proposed for one of the positive countermeasures by the authors. The paper presents the systematic design procedure of the setting of firing angles which satisfy the design specifications of the TCR; that is, each harmonic, the total content of the harmonics and the capacitances of the thyristor and reactor. The use of computer-aided design (CAD) for the choice of firing angles is developed in accordance with the above procedure. Furthermore, the limit of harmonic reduction of the TCR based on an asymmetrical firing control and the effect of multiplexing units on the harmonic reduction are also discussed for the use of CAD.