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Investigation of Series-Connected IGBTs in Fast High-Voltage Circuit Breaker

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Abstract

The ECRH system on J-TEXT tokamak requires fast circuit breakers as switches to cut off the 80 kV power supply within 20 μs when failure occurs. Series connected IGBTs is a better choice for the breaker than mechanical switch and thyristor in this case. The voltage balance among IGBTs is the main issue that needs investigation. This paper presents a two-stage active gate trigger time compensation method to ensure the voltage balance among IGBTs. The test environment consists of a 1500 V/10 A circuit with 3 IGBTs which are connected in series. The experimental result shows that the method can effectively improve the dynamic-voltage balance and has a certain extent meaning for the solution of voltage balance of series connected IGBTs .

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Acknowledgments

While investigated the reason of voltage unbalance in series connected IGBTs, this paper introduces an active trigger time compensation method based on FPGA. The compensation has two stages to ensure the system stability with the high working speed. The test result of three series connected IGBTs shows that the voltage balance of IGBTs has been significantly improved by the compensation. This result provides reference value on the voltage balance technique of series connected IGBTs, and further investigation of the voltage balance of multiple IGBTs is needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yue Dai, Ming Zhang, Kunpeng Fan, Yuan Pan, Kexun Yu & Ge Zhuang

  2. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yue Dai, Ming Zhang, Kunpeng Fan, Yuan Pan, Kexun Yu & Ge Zhuang

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  1. Yue Dai
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  2. Ming Zhang
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  3. Kunpeng Fan
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  4. Yuan Pan
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  5. Kexun Yu
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  6. Ge Zhuang
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Correspondence to Ming Zhang.

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Dai, Y., Zhang, M., Fan, K. et al. Investigation of Series-Connected IGBTs in Fast High-Voltage Circuit Breaker. J Fusion Energ 34, 1406–1410 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10894-015-9981-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10894-015-9981-9

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