8-14 MAGNETIC CONSIDERATIONS

Inductors are used in thyristor commutation circuits and for resonant oscillation
in resonant inverters. The resonant frequency is usually very very high. The
magnetic loss is dependent on the frequency and these inductors should be designed
with magnetic cores of very high permeability to reduce the core losses. The
output of inverters are normally isolated from the load by an output transformer.
The inverter output voltage normally contain harmonics and the transformer losses
are increased. A transformer, which is designed to operate at purely sinusoidal
voltages, would be subjected to higher losses and it shouid be derated when it is
being operated from the output voltages of inverters. The output voltage should
have no dc component; otherwise, the core may be saturated.
SUMMARY

Inverters can provide single-phase and three-phase ac voltages from a fixed or

variable dc voltage. There are various voltage control techniques and they produce
a range of harmonics on the output voltage. The sinusoidal pulse-width modulation
(SPWM) is more effective in reducing the lower-order harmonics. With a proper
choice of the switching patterns for power devices, certain harmonics can be eliminated.
The resonant inverters are normally used in high-frequency applications requiring fixed output voltage. The maximum resonant frequency is limited by the
turn-off time of thyristors (or transistors). Due to the development of fast-switching power transistors and GTOs, the applications of forced-commutatcd thyristor
inverters are limited to high power.
REFERENCES

1. B. D. Bedford, and R. G. Hoft, Principle of Inverter Circuits. New York: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 1964.

2. II. S. Patel, and R. G. Hoft. "Generalized techniques of harmonic elimination and volt

age control in thyristor converter."' IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications. Vol. IA9,
No. 3, 1973, pp. 310-317 and Vol. IA-10, No. 5, 1974; pp. 666-673.
3. T. OhnishiandH. Okitsu, "A novel PWM techniqueforthree-phaseinverter/converter."
International Power Electronics Conference, 1983, pp. 384-395,
4. M. F. Schlecht, "Novel topologies alternatives to the design of a harmonic-free utility/
dc interface." Power Electronic Specialist Conference, 1983, pp. 206-216.
5. K C. Schwarz, "An improved method of resonant current pulse modulation for power
converters." IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics and Control Instrumentation,
Vol. IECI23, No. 2, 1976, pp. 133-141.
6. J. Vitnis.A. Schweizcr, and J, L. Steiner, "Reverse conducting thyristors for high power
scries resonant circuits." IEEE Industry Applications Society Conference Record, 1985,
pp. 715-722.
Chap. 8
279

References