Switched reluctance motors with fully pitched windings are a relatively recent advancementin motor technology having only been in existences ince the early 1990's. They have been shown previously to offer greater torque per unit copper loss, and hence higher torque density, than conventional switched reluctance machines with short pitched windings. Early work by Mecrow and Barrass has demonstrated operation of prototype machines, developed and assessedv arious methods of control strategy, and made some comparisons of machine efficiency and inverter rating. The results presented here build on this early work by, in essence, examining the aspects of machine design, control strategy and inverter topology that affect drive performance and cost. Detailed comparisons of inverter rating and machine efficiency are made under equal conditions with the various methods of excitation that are possible. This is achieved with results from a test rig, including temperature rise tests, and the use of accurate dynamic simulation. The latter is developed to accurately model the motor with its strong mutual coupling between phases, various inverter topologies and the details of the controller such as digital PWM. As a result comparisons between simulated and measured results are shown to be very good. The fundamentals of machine design are examined with a view to optimising the machine for fully pitched windings. Previous work has indicated that good results are achieved when a conventional machine is simply rewound, however it is shown that further improvements can be made. Proposals are made to improve the drive in terms of both machine performance and power electronic rating. A search method is proposed that optimises current waveshape for either maximum torque per unit copper loss, or smooth torque for lowest loss. The method works over the entire speed range, as the rate of change of flux linkage is taken into account. Three alternative power electronic converters are developed, one of which is also particularly suitable for the short pitched winding machine. Aspects of silicon rating, current controllability, and current sensor requirements are discussed.

Brushless permanent magnet (PM) drive systems offer a high efficiency over a wide power/torque-speed operating envelope, however, there are a number of problems that may limit, or complicate, their operation particularly in automotive and aerospace vehicular applications, i.e. the loss of control of the power silicon gate drive circuitry during fluxweakening operation, control of high-speed low-inductance machines and the presence of large electrolytic capacitors on the inverter DC link. Current Source Inverters (CSIs) could potentially address some or all of the above issues. However, they have found little application to date due to the wide use of the Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) circuit topology.This thesis investigates feasibility of utilising Current Source Inverters (CSIs) to control permanent magnet synchronous machines in automotive and aerospace actuation systems. CSIs, switching at the fundamental frequency, were used in some of the first semiconductor based, electronic variable speed drive systems that utilised the simple, low maintenance AC induction motor. However, the rapid progress of semiconductors and discovery of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) techniques soon resulted in the Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) replacing the CSI in all but the highest power applications. Modern power electronics and (micro-processor based) control systems mean that the advantages of VSI systems may no longer be significant and combined with the unique environmental conditions that automotive and aerospace applications present, could allow the CSI to offer advantages over VSIs in these applications.The thesis presents the switching and control logic for CSIs and mapping to the more conventional VSI logic. Analysis is made of the various loss mechanisms in VSI and CSI power circuitary. Simulation models of the VSI and CSI structures are presented and representative drive systems designed, built and tested to validate the model developed. Comparisons are made of the two inverter topologies based on power conversions and loss audits of the test validation hardware.

Voltage source inverters have become widely used in the last decade primarily due to the fact that the dangers and limitations of relying on fossil fuel based power generation have been seen and the long term effects felt especially with regards to climate change. Policies and targets have been implemented such as from the United Nations climate change conference (COPxx) concerning human activities that contribute to global warming from individual countries. The most effective way of reducing these greenhouse gases is to turn to renewable energy sources such as the solar, wind etc instead of coal. Converters play the crucial role of converting the renewable source dc power to ac single phase or multiphase. The advancement in research in renewable energy sources and energy storage has made it possible to do things more efficiently than ever before. Regular or 2 level inverters are adequate for low power low voltage applications but have drawbacks when being used in high power high voltage applications as switching components have to be rated upwards and also switch between very high potential differences. To lessen the constraints on the switching components and to reduce the filtering requirements, multilevel inverters (MLI's) are preferred over two level voltage source inverters (VSI's). This thesis discusses the implementation of various types of MLI's and compares four different pulse width modulation (pwm) techniques that are often used in MLI under consideration: three, five, seven and nine level inverters. Harmonic content of the output voltage is recorded across a range of modulation indices for each of the three popular topologies in literature. Output from the inverter is filtered using an L only and an LC filter whose design techniques are presented. A generalized prediction algorithm using machine learning techniques to give the value of the expected THD as the modulation index is varied for a specific topology and PWM switching method is proposed in this study. Simulation and experimental results are produced in five level form to verify and validate the proposed algorithm.

For an Electrical Vehicle, the power is delivered from the battery pack to the electric motor through the use of power converter. Many research projects have been conducted in improving the efficiency of traction inverters. Inverter topologies are categorized based on the number of voltage levels of the inverter output phase voltage. The conventional 2-level Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) is commonly used as a traction inverter due to its simple structure. Due to the recent trend in utilizing higher DClink voltage in traction motor drives to achieve a higher power rating, multi-level inverters are gaining attention to replace the conventional VSI in EV powertrain. Multi-level voltage source inverters (MLVSI) have been widely adopted in high-power converters and medium-voltage drives. There are four major categories of MLVSI: the Flying Capacitor (FC), Neutral Point Clamped (NPC), Cascaded and Hybrid. The power rating of the MLVSI increases with the increase of inverter levels, but the size, number of switching devices, cost and control difficulty also increases. Due to the above reasons, 3-level NPC can be a good solution for traction inverters. Due to the structure and control limitation, Diode Clamp NPC suffers from uneven loss distribution and neutral point voltage balancing issues. This issue can be resolved with Active Clamped NPC (ANPC). In this thesis, the design, simulation, prototyping and testing of a 70kw 3-level ANPC traction is introduced. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

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VPT, Inc and the U.S. Dept. of Energy have sponsored the development of a high-speed 12 kW AC induction motor to drive automotive fuel cell air compressors. As one part of the development, thermal considerations and the cooling system are detailed in this paper. The motor and inverter are packaged in one unit with the heat sink in the middle. The heat sink is a cold chamber designed to absorb the maximum heat losses from the unit. Empirical data was used to validate the model of the cold chamber and finalize the design. A lumped capacitance finite-difference model was developed to simulate the entire motor inverter assembly. The individual components of the thermal model were tested and the data was used to calibrate and validate the thermal model. Using the model, the thermal overload conditions were investigated. The limiting factors are the stator copper winding temperatures, which can damage the plastic slot liners. The double current test was simulated and operating temperatures of the system remained within thermal limits for 4 minutes. As a conclusion from the model, the thermal resistances from the stator to the case or the heat sink need to be reduced. Integrating the motor casing and end plate to the heat sink, rather than building it in sections, would reduce the thermal contact resistances. Also the copper winding ends in the stator could be coated in material that would bond to the case, thus increasing heat transfer from the windings to the case. / Master of Science

This dissertation covers three levels of issues and solutions dealing with unbalanced and/or nonlinear situations in power electronic systems, namely power converter level, power converter system level, and large-scale power electronics system level. At power converter level, after review of traditional PWM methods, especially two-dimensional space vector modulation schemes, three-dimensional space vector modulation schemes are proposed for four-legged voltage source converters, including inverters and rectifiers. The four-legged power converters with three-dimensional space vector modulation schemes have a better DC link voltage utilization and result in a low distortion. It is an effective solution to provide the neutral point for a three-phase four-wire system and to handle the neutral current due to unbalanced load or source and nonlinear loads. Comprehensive design guidelines for a four-legged inverter are presented. The four-legged rectifier is also presented which allows not only fault tolerant operation, but also provides the flexibility of equal resistance, equal current, or equal power operation under unbalanced source. Average large-signal models of four-legged power converters in both the a-b-c and d-q-o coordinates are derived. Small signal models are obtained in the d-q-o rotating coordinates. Voltage control loops are designed in the d-q-o coordinates for a high power utility power supply. Performance is studied under various load conditions. At the power converter system level, the load conditioner concept is proposed for high power applications. A power converter system structure is proposed which consists of a high-power low-switching frequency main inverter and a low-power high-switching frequency load conditioner. The load conditioner performs multiple functions, such as active filtering, active damping, and active decoupling with a high current control bandwidth. This hybrid approach allows the overall system to achieve high performance with high power and highly nonlinear loads. At the large-scale power electronics system level, the nonlinear loading effect of load converters is analyzed for a DC distribution system. Two solutions to the nonlinear loading effect are presented. One is to confine the nonlinear load effect with the sub-converter system, the other is to use a DC bus conditioner. The DC bus conditioner is the extension of the load conditioner concept. / Ph. D.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in moving away from large centralized power generation toward distributed energy resources. Solar energy generation presents several benefits for use as a distributed energy resource, especially as a peaking power source. One drawback of solar energy sources is the need for energy storage for the system to be utilized for a significant percentage of the day. One way of avoiding adding energy storage to a solar generation system while still maintaining high system utilization is to design the power conversion subsystem to also provide harmonic and reactive compensation. When the sun is unavailable for generation, the system hardware can still be utilized to correct for harmonic and reactive currents on the distribution system. This system's dual-purpose operation solves both the power generation need, and helps to improve the growing problem of harmonic and reactive pollution of the distribution system. A control method is proposed for a system that provides approximately 1 kW of solar generation as well as up to 10 kVA of harmonic and reactive compensation simultaneously. The current control for the active was implemented with the synchronous reference frame method. The system and controller was designed and simulated. The harmonic and reactive compensation part of the system was built and tested experimentally. Due to the delay inherent in the control system from the sensors, calculation time, and power stage dynamics, the system was unable to correct for higher order harmonics. To allow the system to correct for all of the harmonics of concern, a hybrid passive - active approach was investigated by placing a set of inductors in series with the AC side of the load. A procedure was developed for properly sizing the inductors based on the harmonic residuals with the compensator in operation. / Master of Science

In research environments, many soft switching inverters have been conceived, simulated, designed, implemented and proven to have advantages over hard switched inverters. To date however, no soft-switching inverters have reached commercial production for various reasons. The fixed timing coupled inductor soft-switching inverter is of interest because in simulation and previous implementation it exhibits load and source adaptability using simple RC timer circuitry and can be implemented with low cost active auxiliary devices. During the course of this implementation, it is noted that attempting to use excessively small/inexpensive active auxiliary devices has reliability ramifications related to device packaging. The issue of auxiliary active device reliability is conjectured upon by referencing available datasheet information, application specific requirements, device pulse testing and secondary research findings related to semiconductor failure characteristics. It is also noted that aspects of the simple fixed timing circuitry operation, in conjunction with coupled inductor and saturable inductor design, can lead to coupled inductor saturation if not properly addressed. Simulation is performed and validates various causes for this non-ideal behavior. / Master of Science

A modified space vector modulation algorithm for a zero-voltage transition three-phase voltage source inverter/boost rectifier is presented. The converter is intended for high performance medium power applications requiring bi-directional power flow. The proposed modified space vector modulation allows the main switches to be operated with constant frequency and soft switching for any phase shift between the three-phase currents and voltages. The modulation algorithm also eliminates any low frequency distortion caused by the zero-voltage transition and can be extended to other soft-switching PWM three-phase converters. Experimental verification of the proposed algorithm is also presented as well as a comparison to the hard switched PWM converter. / Master of Science