Regenerative Passive Snubber Circuit for High-Frequency Link Converters

• Published in: IEEE journal of emerging and selected topics in industrial electronics (Print) Vol. 3; no. 2; pp. 252 - 257
• Main Authors: Blinov, Andrei, Verbytskyi, Ievgen, Peftitsis, Dimosthenis, Vinnikov, Dmitri
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: <sc xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">MOSFET s; Circuits; Cycloconverters; Damping; DC–AC power conversion; Electric potential; Inductance; MOSFETs; Oscillations; Oscillators; power transistors; pulsewidth modulated inverters; Reduction; Semiconductor devices; Snubbers; Topology; Transistors; Voltage; Windings; Wires
• ISSN: 2687-9735; 2687-9743
• DOI: 10.1109/JESTIE.2021.3066897

This letter presents a passive snubber circuit for high-frequency link cycloconverters, which typically suffer from voltage oscillations across matrix-stage semiconductor devices. The proposed passive snubber allows for effective damping of the oscillations and reduction of the peak voltage stress. It is based on an auxiliary transformer and a diode bridge rectifier, which are rated only for a fraction of total converter power regenerated back to the input dc source. The performance of the circuit was verified with 350 Vdc/230 Vac, 1 kW SiC MOSFET -based experimental prototype and a reduction of the peak voltage overshoot from 2.24 to 1.55 times the nominal was achieved, without negative impact on the converter overall efficiency. As a result, the blocking voltage rating of the matrix-stage semiconductors can be reduced from 900 to 650 V.