Power Electronic Systems

Power electronics refers to control and conversion of electrical

power by power semiconductor devices wherein these devices
operate as switches. Advent of silicon-controlled rectifiers,
abbreviated as SCRs, led to the development of a new field of
application called the power electronics. Before SCRs,
mercury-arc rectifiers were used for controlling electrical
power, but such rectifier circuits were part of industrial
electronics and the scope for applications of mercury-arc
rectifiers was limited. The application spread to many fields
such as drives, power supplies, aviation electronics, high
frequency inverters and power electronics.

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• Power electronics relates to the control and flow
of electrical energy.
• Control is done using electronic switches,
capacitors, magnetics, and control systems.
• Scope of power electronics: milliWatts ⇒
gigaWatts
• Power electronics is a growing field due to the
improvement in switching technologies and the
need for more and more efficient switching
circuits.

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Interdisciplinary Nature of Power Electronics

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 Applications
• Heating and lighting control
• Induction heating
• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)
• Fluorescent lamp ballasts: Passive; Active
• Electric power transmission
• Automotive electronics
• Electronic ignitions
• Motor drives
• Battery chargers
• Alternators
• Energy storage
• Electric vehicles
• Alternative power sources: Solar; Wind; Fuel Cells
• And more!

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 Tasks of Power Electronics

Rectification referring to conversion of ac voltage to dc

voltage
DC-to-AC conversion
DC-to DC conversion
AC-to-AC conversion

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Example

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 Converters
Electronic power converter is the term that is used to refer to a
power electronic circuit that converts voltage and current from
one form to another.

 Rectifier converting an ac voltage to a dc voltage

 Inverter converting a dc voltage to an ac voltage
 Chopper or a switch-mode power supply that converts a
dc voltage to another dc voltage
 Cycloconverter and cycloinverter converting an ac voltage
to another ac voltage.

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 Rectifiers
Rectifiers may be classified as uncontrolled and controlled rectifiers.
Controlled rectifiers can be further divided into semi-controlled and fully-
controlled rectifiers. Uncontrolled rectifier circuits are built with diodes,
and fully-controlled rectifier circuits are built with SCRs.
Both diodes and SCRs are used in semi-controlled rectifier circuits.

 Single-phase semi-controlled bridge rectifier

 Single-phase fully-controlled bridge rectifier
 Three-phase three-pulse, star-connected rectifier
 Double three-phase, three-pulse star-connected rectifiers with inter-
phase transformer (IPT)
 Three-phase semi-controlled bridge rectifier
 Three-phase fully-controlled bridge rectifier
 Double three-phase fully-controlled bridge rectifiers with IPT.
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 DC to AC Conversion
The converter that changes a DC to AC is called an inverter. Earlier inverters
were built with SCRs. Since the circuitry required to turn the SCR off tends to be
complex, other power semiconductor devices such as bipolar junction transistors,
power MOSFETs, insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) and MOS-controlled
thyristors (MCTs) are used nowadays. Currently only the inverters with a high
power rating, such as 500 kW or higher.

 Emergency lighting systems

 AC variable speed drives
 Uninterrupted power supplies
 Frequency converters.

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 DC to DC Conversion
When the SCR came into use, a dc-to-dc converter circuit was called a
chopper. Nowadays, an SCR is rarely used in a dc-to-dc converter. Either a
power BJT or a power MOSFET is normally used in such a converter and this
converter is called a switch-mode power supply.

 Step-down switch-mode power supply

 Step-up chopper
 Fly-back converter
 Resonant converter.

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 AC to AC Converter
• A cycloconverter or a cycloinverter converts an ac voltage, such as the mains
supply, to another ac voltage. The amplitude and the frequency of input
voltage to a cycloconverter tend to be fixed values, whereas both the
amplitude and the frequency of output voltage of a cycloconverter tend to be
variable.
• Tthe circuit that converts an ac voltage to another ac voltage at the same
frequency is known as an AC-chopper.
A typical application of a cycloconverter is to use it for controlling the speed
of an ac traction motor and most of these cycloconverters have a high power
output, of the order a few megawatts and SCRs are used in these circuits. In
contrast, low cost, low power cycloconverters for low power ac motors are
also in use and many of these circuit tend to use TRIACS in place of SCRs.
• Unlike an SCR which conducts in only one direction, a TRIACS is capable of
conducting in either direction and like an SCR, it is also a three terminal
device. It may be noted that the use of a cycloconverter is not as common as
that of an inverter and a cycloinverter is rarely used.
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 Applications of Power Electronics
• In a conventional car, power electronics applications are a
major area of future expansion.
• Look inside the audio system, for example; the amplifiers
in today’s car stereos are usually capable of delivering 40
W or more. But a 12 V supply applied to an 8 Ohm speaker
produces 18 W output at best.
• To solve this power supply problem, designers use a boost
converter (DC to DC Converter) to provide higher voltage
power to the amplifier circuit. This allows car amplifiers to
generate the same audio output power as home stereos.

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 Automobile’s Ignition System

• Another universal power electronics application is the

automobile’s ignition system.
• Thousands of volts are required to ignite the fuel-air
mixture inside a cylinder so that internal combustion can
occur.
• Today’s cars employ all-electronic ignition systems, which
have replaced the traditional spark plugs with boost
converters coupled to transformers.

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 Hybrid Cars

• We are curious about new electric and hybrid cars, in which the primary
electrical system is dominated by power electronics. Electric cars offer
high performance, zero tailpipe emissions, and low costs, but are still
limited in range by the need for batteries.
• Hybrid car designs use various strategies to combine both an engine and
electrical elements to gain advantages of each.
• Inverters and DC-DC converters rated for many kilowatts serve as
primary energy control blocks. See
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm.

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Diodes

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Zener Diodes

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 Silicon Controlled Rectifiers
The basic purpose of the SCR is to function as a switch that can turn on or
off small or large amounts of power. It performs this function with no
moving parts that wear out and no points that require replacing. There can
be a tremendous power gain in the SCR; in some units a very small
triggering current is able to switch several hundred amperes without
exceeding its rated abilities. The SCR can often replace much slower and
larger mechanical switches.

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Motor Controllers

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AC to DC Conversion: Half-Wave Rectifier

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Full Wave Rectifier

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 Classification of Power Electronic Devices
The following is taken from Principles and Applications of Electrical Engineering by G. Rizzoni, McGraw Hill

Figure
12.1

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Power Electric Circuits

Table 12.1

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AC-DC Converter Circuit and Waveform

Figure 12.2

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AC-AC Converter Circuit and Waveform

Figure
12.3

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DC-DC Converter Circuit and Waveform

Figure
12.4

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Rectifier Connected to an Operation of a Freewheeling Diode
Inductive Load

Figure 12.17,
12.18

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Three-Phase Diode Bridge Waveforms and Conduction
Rectifier Times of Three-Phase Bridge
Rectifier

Figure
12.20,
12.21

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 Half-Wave Controlled Rectifier
Controlled Rectifier Circuit
Waveforms

Figure 12.25, 12.26

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DC Motor Step-Down Chopper (Buck Converter)

E a  I a  Tm  wm
Figure
12.34, 12.35

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