Power electronics represents a branch of electronics dedicated to the controlled conversion of electrical energy. This conversion includes adaptation of power to diverse applications such as voltage or current power sources, electrical drives, active filtering in power systems, distributed generation and smart grid, electrochemical processes, inductive heating, lighting and cooking control, distributed generation, and naval or automotive electronics. This very broad range of applications has stimulated research and development, and new control methods of power hardware are suggested each day. The medium- and high-power converter systems require multidisciplinary knowledge of basic power electronics, digital control and hardware, sensors, analog preprocessing of signals, thermal management, reliability, protection devices and fault management, or mathematical calculus.
Because of this great number of technical solutions with many variations of the same concepts, it is somewhat difficult for the practicing engineer or for a student to keep track of new developments or to find the most appropriate solution in the given time. It is therefore easier to develop a reasoning based on system-level understanding of the problem rather than aiming at an encyclopedia collection of solutions. This naturally moves the question from “how to do it?” to “what is better to do?” Therefore, a good engineer involved in industrial activities needs to also understand technology evolution, market timing, component availability and technology cycling, social requirements for environment and reliability, all of these in addition to the classical now circuit design.
Libraries and bookstores offer a great number of books on power electronics, mostly academic textbooks of a theoretical nature without getting too deeply into the practical aspects of technology development.
Other publications offer a multitude of design solutions grouped into an encyclopedia style handbook. Given the need for multidisciplinary knowledge at the edge between academic and industrial preoccupations, as well as the large variety of applications, the technical information often stretches beyond the offer of a handbook.
Conversely, this book offers a technology review rather than a collection of design procedures. Readers are offered information about the history of important achievements, current performance expectations, the technology evolution from radical to incremental solutions, S-curve and the cycle of performance achievement in technology development, and modern requirements for either standards or design for reliability. All of these distinguish this book on the library shelf as a very unique view of the technology of power electronics systems. This way, the design and development decisions are not made solely by circuit investigation, and a multitude of other technology-related criteria can be considered.
This book can also be seen as a digest of cutting-edge results in the field of medium- and high-power converters presented in a precise manner, with a fair amount of examples and references. From the numerous papers, patents, and research notes published throughout the world during the last 25 years, those methods mostly relevant to the industry have been selected as samples of the technology evolution. The position of each topic in the history of power electronics technology and its contribution to performance improvement is highlighted and justified. The most incisive focus of this book is dedicated to the PWM algorithms and it is hoped that this book presents this concept at its best.
The presentation flows from simple facts to advanced research topics and readers are required to have only a minimal background in electrical engineering or power electronics. Chapters in the first part of the book end with problems to help readers improve their learning. This combination of theory and examples is the result of the author’s many years of teaching at different universities as well as his vast industrial “hands-on” experience.
The book begins with an overview of industrial power converters and power semiconductors dedicated to medium- and high-power operations, and includes aspects about the market. After a brief technology review of power semiconductors in Chapter 2, Chapters 3, 4, 5 define the basics of operating a conventional three-phase inverter with pulse width modulation. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are dedicated to the practical aspects of implementation with many examples from known industrial platforms. Chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 are dedicated to other special three-phase topologies and their control. Chapter 14 introduces a solution that has been used more frequently during the past few years to achieve higher power from conventional lower-power converters. The parallel or interleaved operation of conventional three-phase inverters helps increase the power capacity by the addition of multiple low-power units already available on the market.
Finally, Chapter 18 features a future-looking research topic related to conceiving novel converter topologies using Intelligent Power Modules as building bricks, under the Network of Switches concept, with benefits in reliability improvement and loss reduction. It is the author’s belief that the Network of Switches concept can represent for contemporary power electronics what the transition from the bipolar transistor to the integrated circuit meant for analog electronics in 1970s.
This book covers modern topics pertaining to medium- and high-power converters used in three-phase DC/AC or AC/DC conversion, and it can serve as an advanced textbook for graduate students or as a reference book for engineers working in the industry.
Dorin O. Neacsu
Iasi, Romania
and
Westford, Massachusetts
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