Inclusive Design and Development of Front-End Multiphase Rectifier with Reduced Magnetic Rating and Improved Efficiency

Abstract

This article proposes a 20-pulse asymmetric multiphase converter (AMPC) suitable for medium-and high-power applications. Unlike the other state-of-the-art 20-pulse delta-connected autotransformers, the proposed delta-connected AMPC has an ability to reduce input harmonics, maintains high efficiency, and requires a magnetic rating of only 30.12% of the nominal load; thereby, a significant reduction in space, weight, and overall cost required is the salient features of the proposed AMPC. A detailed power quality performance analysis and an efficiency calculation are discussed. First, the proposed AMPC configuration is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment for evaluating its viability under different loading conditions, and the results are illustrated. A detailed comparison of the proposed AMPC configuration with other multipulse transformers is included, which confirms the merits of the proposed system. Also, a prototype is developed, and the experimental measurements obtained are presented to validate the feasibility and operability of the proposed AMPC. The proposed AMPC offers a total harmonic distortion of 3.7% and can operate at near-unity power factor complying with the IEEE and IEC standards. © 2013 IEEE.