V-CE Sensing for IGBT Protection in NPC Three Level Converters-Causes For Spurious Trippings and Their Elimination

Jain, Amit Kumar and Ranganathan, VT (2011) V-CE Sensing for IGBT Protection in NPC Three Level Converters-Causes For Spurious Trippings and Their Elimination. In: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 26 (1). pp. 298-307.

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Abstract

Neutral point clamped (NPC), three level converters with insulated gate bipolar transistor devices are very popular in medium voltage, high power applications. DC bus short circuit protection is usually done, using the sensed voltage across collector and emitter (i.e., V-CE sensing), of all the devices in a leg. This feature is accommodated with the conventional gate drive circuits used in the two level converters. The similar gate drive circuit, when adopted for NPC three level converter protection, leads to false V-CE fault signals for inner devices of the leg. The paper explains the detailed circuit behavior and reasons, which result in the occurrence of such false V-CE fault signals. This paper also illustrates that such a phenomenon shows dependence on the power factor of the supplied three-phase load. Finally, experimental results are presented to support the analysis. It is shown that the problem can be avoided by blocking out the V-CE sense fault signals of the inner devices of the leg.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
Publisher:	IEEE
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to IEEE.
Keywords:	Gate drive circuit; multilevel converter; neutral point clamped (NPC); short circuit protection
Department/Centre:	Division of Electrical Sciences > Electrical Engineering
Date Deposited:	01 Mar 2011 11:25
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2011 11:25
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/35819

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