Non-conventional Supplying System for Induction

Traction Motors from Diesel Locomotives

M. Huzau1, R. Both1, E.H. Dulf1, V. Tulbure2,
1
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, C.Daicoviciu, Nr.15, 400020, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Roxana.Both@aut.utcluj.ro
2
Ecological University of Bucharest

Abstract-The evolution of the power electronic devices (with

proper control strategies) enables the replacement of the DC trac-
tion- motor with the more advantageous induction motor in rail-
way application. The AC traction motors ask for expensive, intri-
cate inverters with semiconductors working under high electric
stress. For the Diesel- electric locomotives, the authors propose an
original non-conventional supplying system for AC motor with
reduced stress of the power semiconductors. The main idea is to
replace the conventional three- phase inverter with a three- phase
power circuit operating as matrix- converter or, more proper, as
cyclo- converter [1, 2]. The paper presents the principle of op-
eration of this new supplying system and gives some results of the
digital simulation in Matlab- Simulink.
Figure 1. Topology of the conventional three-phase inverter
I. INTRODUCTION
The robustness, low price, safety in operation and low-cost In the paper are presented, briefly, two methods which re-
maintenance are well-known advantages of induction motors in duce the semiconductor stress in order to increase the switch-
railway traction systems. Torque and speed control is here by ing frequency. The resonant DC link inverter has a common
far more difficult than in the case of the DC-motor control, structure given in Fig.2. The DC voltage is used to resonate an
because the induction motor needs a symmetrical three-phase LC-network, giving rise to instant of zero voltage. The output
voltage system with controlled amplitude and frequency. Only power switches are connected to the network such that switch-
modern power electronic devices and their dedicated - in many ing occurs at zero - crossing, then switching losses are signifi-
cases integrated - control circuits can efficiently solve the prob- cantly reduced.
lem. The main circuit: the inverter can operate in hard switch-
ing mode or relative newly, in soft-switching mode. The
second solution reduces the semiconductor stress but increases
the circuit complexity.
By hard-switching the transitions off to on but especially on
to off generate power losses in semiconductor device. In prin-
ciple, by soft-switching certain currents and/or voltages present
zero-crossing situations due to the auxiliary circuits in many
cases, resonant circuits. It is possible to appear zero current
switching (ZCS) or zero voltage switching (ZVS).

II. BRIEF INVERTER ANALYSIS

The typical structure of the inverter power circuit in three-
phase version is given in Fig.1 with various control strategies.
The six power switches (S1-S6) are implemented using thyris-
tors , GTOs or IGBTs [3] in the range hundred of kWs or
more. By hard switching, the transition generates power dissi- Figure 2. Circuit schematics of three-phase resonant DC link inverter. a) seven
switches and b) six switches
pation in semiconductor, being a reason which limits the max-
imum value of the switching frequency.
The great drawback of these circuits is a large resonant link
voltage overshoot. New topologies were derived in order to
overcome this, Fig.3.
Figure 3. Circuit schematic of a three-phase actively clamped resonant DC link
inverter
Fig. 4 illustrates the principle used to obtain by sensitizing
the derived fundamental component from complete half cycle
of the high- frequency link voltage.
Figure 4. Modulation principle of parallel resonant AC voltage link converter
For the inverter from Fig. 3, with active voltage clamp, the
main wave shapes are presented in Fig. 5.
Figure 5. DC link voltage and line to line output voltage waveforms
In a multi-stage power converter (cascade converter), the
DC- source is chopped to a square wave of higher frequency,
then an AC-AC cyclo- converter type converter [1, 2] gene-
rates the low frequency desired output voltage. The cyclo- con-
verter (with AC-AC conversion) operates with low power
losses.
In Fig. 6 is presented a two- stage converter: the switches
( T1 T4 ) operate in hard- switching frame as the first stage
inverter. The switches ( T5 T10 ) operate as
converters- being the second stage inverters.
Figure 6. Simplified topology of the two-stage converter
By addition of (LC) resonant networks it is possible to
supply the cyclo-converter in sinusoidal voltage instead of
square-wave one.
From the previous analysis results the low-level of the semi-
conductor power loss by cyclo-converters compared to hard-
switching inverters, but the hard-order harmonic contents can
be reduced significantly only by hard-switching, high frequen-
cy inverters.
III. THE PROPOSED SOLUTION
The typical actual structure of the supplying system of the
induction traction motor (ITM) of a Diesel electric locomotive
is given in Fig.7.
Figure 7. Electrical scheme of a Diesel Electric locomotive
The Diesel-engine (DE) drives the synchronous generator
(SG) whose three-phase output voltage is rectified in uncon-
trolled rectifier (R). The conventional inverters (INV) supply
the traction motors. Usually, the frequency ( o ) of the output
voltage is given by the power semiconductor control strategy,
applied to inverter. The switches are implemented with GTOs
[3, 4]. The amplitude of the output voltage is controlled from
the field voltage of the synchronous generator. It is a typical
hard-switching operation, applied in various improved strate-
gies.[3]
The operational speed ( D ) of the Diesel-engine changes in
small range, being kept, as much as possible, at the optimal
value, so that on supposes ( D = const ). The proposed non-
conventional solution is a particular version of the two stage
cyclo- inverter by which the synchronous generator with a greater
number of pole-pairs plays the role of the first stage. Because
the three-phase synchronous generator is more advantageous
[4] than the single-phase one, by same rated power, the pro-
posed solution is based on a three-phase generator, which de- IV. SIMULATION OF THE PROPOSED SUPPLYING
livers the AC-voltage system. The rated frequency (fg) may be SYSTEM
in the range 400-600Hz. As usually, the output frequency is
It was simulated the operation of the phase (s). The generator
given by the Diesel-engine shaft speed (D) and the amplitude
frequency was selected at f g = 60 Hz (sine wave) and the
is decided by the field voltage.
The general scheme of the non-conventional topology sys- desired output voltage f 0 = 5Hz (sine wave) with
tem is given in Fig.8. Each phase-winding of the synchronous ( f g / f 0 = 12 ). The idealized rectifier is implemented using the
generator has two symmetrical sections with centered-tap
(connected to the ground) in order to achieve a full-wave recti- function (Abs). The cyclo- converter control uses the dead-
fication [3] of each phase voltage. The rectifying bridges (RR), zone function Fig. 11- and two switches (Switch and
(RS) and (RT) generate positive and negative pulses. Switch 1).
+us
~ + Cycloconverter uA
us |u| -1
-us
uR A
~ RR - A Sine Wave Abs Gain

R ~ + Cycloconverter uB
S uS B
~ RS - B
T ~ + Sine Wave1 Dead Zone Switch U
Cycloconverter uC
uT
~ RT -
C
C
0
D
#
Constant
F
+ - ITM
uf -1

Figure 8. Scheme of the proposed supplying system Gain1 Switch1

The cyclo-converters (A), (B) and (C) synthesize the output Figure 11. Per-phase simulation scheme
low-frequency voltages (uA), (uB) and (uC) for the induction
motor. The phase output voltage (U) is given in Fig. 12.
The mode of operation of the supplying system results from 10
Fig.9, being selected the phase (S) of the generator and the
phase (B) of the induction motor. The control strategy of the 8

thyristor gates ( g S + ) and ( g S ) determines the shape and 6

frequency of the output voltage. The gate signal may be a high 4

frequency pulse-train in the range of kHz. In order to illustrate 2
the cyclo-converter control strategy, for instance by phase (S),
U [p.u.]

in the Fig.10 are represented the gate pulses for thyristors 0

( TS + ) and ( TS ). -2

-4

-6

-8

-10
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec]

Figure 12. Phase output voltage (phase S)

If the induction- motor phase coil, by no load, is approx-

Figure 9. The operation of the non-conventional proposed supplying system imated by a first order element:

k
I S (s ) = U S (s) (1)
Ts + 1

the evolutions of the phase current are given in the Fig. 13 a),
for ( T = 0.1sec ) and 13 b) for ( T = 0.01sec ).

Figure 10. The control signals for the cycloconverters thyristors

 80
30
60

40
20
20

IR[p.u.]
0
10
-20
IB [p.u.]

0 -40

-60

-10 -80
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec]

-20
b)
80

-30 60
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec] 40

a) 20

IT [p.u.]
0
80
-20

60 -40

-60
40
-80
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec]
20
Figure 14. The three-phase currents system
IB [p.u.]

-20
V. CONCLUSIONS
-40
Based on the digital simulation of the non-conventional sup-
-60
plying system for induction traction motor from Diesel-electric
locomotive, results the possibility of practical implementation
-80 of this new solution. The shape of the phase currents of the
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec] induction motor is close to the typical shape of the convention-
al inverter with GTOs. As a future step the authors will con-
b)
Figure 13. Evolution of the no-load phase S current with a) L/R=0.1 [sec] struct a physical model with a test-rig.
and b) L/R=0.01 [sec]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 14 presents the evolutions of the phase currents I R (t ) ,
This work has supported by the Romanian Research Grant
I S (t ) and I T (t ) for the supplying frequency ( f 0 = 5Hz ).
71-023/2007.
80
REFERENCES
60

40
[1] J. Kass et al., Design of New Two-stage Electronic System with Two-
phase Orthogonal Output Using Matrix Converter, VSCHT.Cz / Konfe-
20 rence 2004
[2] C. Chabert, A. Rufer, Multilevel Converter with 2 Stage Conversion,
IR[p.u.]

0
EPE-2001, Graz, Austria
-20
[3] N. Mohan et al., Power Electronics, Converters, Applications and De-
-40 sign, Willey, 2007
[4] T. Dordea, Electrical Machines (in Romanian), Asab Publishing House,
-60
2003
-80
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65
t [sec]

a)