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Power Electronics

Book · August 2016

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Kandaswamy K V
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Power electronics partly begins to power engineering and partly to electronics

engineering. Power engineering is mainly concerned with generation, transmission
distribution and utilization of electric energy at higher efficiency. Electronics
engineering is guided by distortionless production, transmission and reception of data
and signals of a very low power level.

Power electronics is a subject that concerns the applications of electronic

principles into situations that are rated at power rather than signal levels.

1.1.1 Few Power Electronics Applications

Aerospace – Satellite power supply

Commercial – Elevators, Light dimmers
Industrial – Compressors, industrial lasers
Residential – Air-conditioning, cooking, dryers and fans
Telecommunication – Battery chargers

1.1.2 Advantages of Power Electronics

 Higher efficiency due to low loss

 High reliability

 Long life and less maintenance

 Fast dynamic response

 Small size and less weight

1.2 Power Electronics

1.1.3 Disadvantages of Power Electronics

 Tendency to generate harmonics
 In Load circuit, the performance of load is influenced.
 AC to DC and AC to AC converters operate at low input powfer factor
under certain operating conditions
 It has low over load capacity
 Regeneration of power is difficult

1.1.4 Power electronic systems

The power electronic system consists of three major points shown in Fig. 1.1.

1. Main unit (switching unit), 2. Control unit (pwm unit) 3. Feed back unit

1. Main unit [Power electronic circuit]

This unit is major part of any power electronic circuit. It is switching part of
the power electronic circuit. This section do all necessary type of conversion like
(AC-DC, DC-DC, DC-AC and AC to AC conversion)

AC-DC converter – Phase control rectifier, SMPS

DC-DC converter – Choppers
DC-AC converter – Inverters
AC-AC converter – AC voltage regulator, cyclo-converter matrix converter

2. Control unit
Control unit is responsible for generating pwm pulse (or) other type pulse. Based
on requirement of load the control unit generates the pwm signals for switching circuit.
Recent years many type of control algorithms are developed to produce optimized
output for load.

3. Load and Feed back unit

Satisfying the load requirement is ultimate aim of any power electronics unit.
The load might be any type R, RL load, RC load, motor etc.
Power Semi-conductor Devices 1.3

In order to produce constant (or) optimal output to load, a part of output voltage
(or) current is feed back to the control unit.

Fig. 1.1 Power electronic systems

Table 1.1 Types of power electronic converters

S.No. Name of the device Type of conversion

1. Diode Rectifier variable AC input to fixed DC voltage
2. AC-DC converter constant AC voltage to variable DC
(phase controlled rectifier) output voltage
3. DC-DC converters (choppers) fixed DC input to controllable DC output
voltages
4. DC-AC converters (inverter) fixed AC to variable ac
5. AC-AC converters fixed AC input to variable AC output
voltage
(a) AC voltage controllers fixed AC voltage to variable AC voltage
(b) Cyclo-converters  Convert input power at one
frequency to output power at different
frequency.
6. Static switches A device that transfers electrical source
to another source without intermption.
1.4 Power Electronics

1.1.5 Classification of various semiconductor devices

Based on (i) turn-ON and turn-OFF characteristics (ii) gate signal requirements
(iii) degree of controllable, power semiconductor devices can be classified as following

1. Diodes: Uncontrolled rectifying devices ON and OFF states are controlled by

power supply.

Ratings: 3000 V, 3500 A, 1 kHz.

2. Thyristor: Controlled turn-on by a gate signal. After thyristor are ON, they
remain latched in state due to internal action of gate losses control. Turning off can
be achieved by power circuit.

Ratings: 6000 V, 3500 A, 1 kHz.

3. Controllable switches: These can be turned-ON and turned-OFF by the

application of control signals.

Example: BJT, MOSFET, GTO, SITH, IGBT, SIT, MCT

Table 1.2 voltage, current and frequency rating of power semiconductor device

S.No. Name of the device Voltage, current and frequency rating

1. BJT 1200 V, 400 A, 10 kHz
2. MOSFET 1000 V, 50 A, 100 kHz
3. IGBT 1200 V, 400 A, 20 kHz
4. MCT 600 V, 60 A, 20 kHz
5. GTO 4000 V, 3000 A, 10 kHz

 32:(5 ',2'(6

A low power diode called as signal diode. A high power diode is called as
power diode. It is also a PN junction diode.
 Power Semi-conductor Devices 1.5

1.2.1 Difference between power diode and signal diode

Power diodes plays an important role in power electronics circuits. Diodes are
generally called as uncontrolled switch. Diodes are used in power electronics circuits
because of the specific characteristics, such as high breakdown voltage, and high current
carrying capability. Small switching time delays and small current rise and fall times.

Table 1.3 Comparison on power and signal diode

Power diode Signal diode

Voltage, current, power ratings are at Voltage, current, power ratings are at
power level low level.
It operates at lower switching speeds It operates at higher switching speed.

Fig. 1.2 (a) Symbol (b) Simple PN junction layer diagram

Fig. 1.2 (c) Construction of power diode

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