Guy Seguier – författare

This is the final volume in a four-volume series concerning POWER ELEC­ TRONIC CONVERTERS. The first volume studies AC/DC conversion, the second studies AC/ AC conversion, and the third DC/DC conversion. This final volume deals with DC/AC conversion, i.e. with inverters. At the output of an inverter fed by a DC voltage supply, this voltage is alternatively found with one polarity and then with the other; in other words, an AC voltage made up of square pulses is obtained. Filtering must be carried out if, as is normally the case, a virtually sinusoidal voltage is required: this problem of filtering underlies the entire study of inverters. In some applications, the load itself provides the filtering. In others, a filter is installed between the inverter and the load; however, as it will be shown in Chap. 2, in cases where the filtered voltage is at industrial network frequency and comprises only a single square-wave pulse per half-cycle, the filter becomes bulky and costly, and the results obtained are poor. Filtering problems explain the considerable development of inverters during the last years: - Firstly there is increasing use of pulse width modulation: each half-cycle is cut up into several pulses of suitable widths; this greatly simplifies filtering. The use of a chopping frequency which is much greater than the frequency of the fundamental components of the inverter output voltage and current has only been made possible by progress in the field of semiconductor devices.

This is the final volume in a four-volume series concerning POWER ELEC­ TRONIC CONVERTERS. The first volume studies AC/DC conversion, the second studies AC/ AC conversion, and the third DC/DC conversion. This final volume deals with DC/AC conversion, i.e. with inverters. At the output of an inverter fed by a DC voltage supply, this voltage is alternatively found with one polarity and then with the other; in other words, an AC voltage made up of square pulses is obtained. Filtering must be carried out if, as is normally the case, a virtually sinusoidal voltage is required: this problem of filtering underlies the entire study of inverters. In some applications, the load itself provides the filtering. In others, a filter is installed between the inverter and the load; however, as it will be shown in Chap. 2, in cases where the filtered voltage is at industrial network frequency and comprises only a single square-wave pulse per half-cycle, the filter becomes bulky and costly, and the results obtained are poor. Filtering problems explain the considerable development of inverters during the last years: - Firstly there is increasing use of pulse width modulation: each half-cycle is cut up into several pulses of suitable widths; this greatly simplifies filtering. The use of a chopping frequency which is much greater than the frequency of the fundamental components of the inverter output voltage and current has only been made possible by progress in the field of semiconductor devices.

This book is the third in a series of four devoted to POWER ELECTRONIC CONVERTERS: The first of these concerns AC to DC conversion. The second concerns AC to AC conversion. This volume examines DC to DC conversion. The fourth is devoted to DC to AC conversion. Converters which carry out the DC-DC conversion operate by chopping the input voltage or current: they are called choppers or switch-mode power converters. Their operating frequency is not imposed by either the input or the output, both of which are at zero frequency. A frequency which is much greater than that of the industrial network can be chosen, provided that suitable configurations and semiconductor devices are used. This is the first difference compared to the rectifiers and AC-AC converters, analyzed in the previous volumes and which often operate at the industrial network frequency. The second difference concerns the commutation mode. Choppers operate in forced commutation. The beginning of an operating phase does not auto­ matically turn off the semiconductor devices which were conducting during the previous phase and which have to be brought to the blocking state. This turn-off must be carried out autonomously. These two differences - the higher frequency of commutations and, espe­ cially, the different mode of commutation -justify the first two chapters in this work: - Chapter 1 examines general notions concerning converters, supplies and loads, and more especially, how they can be characterized with regard to commutations.