Acta Polytechnica Vol. 48 No. 3/2008 Single-Phase Pulse Width Modulated Rectifier J. Bauer The PWM rectifier is a very popular topic nowadays. With the expansion of electronics, conversion of electric parameters is also needed. For this purpose the side effects of passive rectifiers, e.g. production of harmonics and reactive power, must be taken into account. All these side effects fall away with the application of PWM rectifiers. This paper compares the differences between a phase angle controlled rectifier and a PWM rectifier. Keywords: Rectifier, Pulse Width Modulation, Harmonics Analysis, Active Front-End. 1 Introduction semiconductors that can be switched off IGBT transistors. The rectifier is controlled by pulse width modulation. A rec- th At the beginning of the 19 century, electric energy came tifier controlled in this way consumes current of required into use in many technical fields. From the beginning ways shape, which is mostly sinusoidal. It works with a given phase were sought to change parameters such as voltage, frequen- displacement between the consumed current and the supply cy and current. The converters of electric parameters can voltage. The power factor can also be controlled and there are be divided into two main groups. The first group uses for minimal effects on the supply network. change the Faraday’s law of induction e.g. the Ward-Leonard PWM rectifiers can be divided into two groups according drive. The second group includes converters that work on the to power circuit connection – the current and the voltage type. controlled switching principle, i.e., semiconducting rectifiers, For proper function of current a type rectifier, the maxi- inverters, etc. mum value of the supply voltage must be higher than the value of the rectified voltage. The main advantage is that 2 Phase controlled rectifiers the rectified voltage is regulated from zero. They are suitable The electric energy conversion made by semiconducting for work with DC loads (DC motors, current inverters) converters is being used more and more. This had led to the For proper function voltage type rectifiers require higher growth of negative phenomenons, that appeared negligible, voltageontheDCsidethanthemaximumvalueofthesupply when only a few converters being used. However the develop- voltage. The rectified voltage on the output is smoother than ment of semiconductor structures has enabled higher power the output voltage of the current type rectifier. they also to be transmitted and has also led to wide spread of con- require a more powerful microprocessor for their control. verters. In this way, converters have a negative effect on the Output voltage lower than the voltage on input side can be supply network. The regressive effects of overloads with har- obtained only with increased reactive power consumption. monics and reactive power consumption are becoming major The function of the rectifier depends on the supply type disadvantages of phase controlled (mostly thyristor) rectifiers. of network. There are two types of supply network – “hard” These side effects need to be compensated by additional fil- and “soft”. tering circuits with capacitors or inductances. However, such Ordinary rectifiers, which work on a relatively “hard” sup- circuits raise the costs and also increase material and space ply network, do not affect the shape of the supply voltage requirements for the converter. waveform. Harmonics produce electromagnetic distortion, Phase control and commutation of semiconducting de- and the network will be loaded with reactive power. The PWM vices impact the phase displacement between the first rectifier aims to consume sinusoidal current and to work with harmonics of the consumed current and the first harmonics given power factor. of the supply voltage. This displacement leads to power factor A PWM rectifier connected to the “soft” supply network degradation and to reactive power consumption. The con- has more potential to affect the shape of the supply voltage sumed current harmonics cause non-sinusoidal voltage drops network. It can be controlled, so the current consumed by the on the supply network impedances and lead to supply voltage PWM rectifier will partly compensate the non-harmonic con- deformation. This may cause malfunctions of other devices sumption of other devices connected to the supply network. that are sensible to the sinusoidal shape of the supply voltage (e.g. measurement apparatuses, communication and control systems). The reactive power rises with longer control angle 4 Control of the PWM rectifier delays, so the rectifier acts as a time variable impedance that is nonlinear and causes deformed current consumption. The basic block diagram of one phase PWM rectifier is showninFig.1. The rectifier consists of 4 IGBT transistors, which form 3 PWM rectifiers a full bridge, the input inductance and the capacitor at In order to suppress these negative phenomena caused by the output. It is controlled by pulse width modulation. Sup- the power rectifiers, use is made of rectifiers with a more so- ply voltage Us and the voltage at the rectifier input Ur are phisticated control algorithm. Such rectifiers are realized by sinusoidal waveforms separated by the input inductance. The 84 © Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/ Acta Polytechnica Vol. 48 No. 3/2008 Ic Id Xs T1 D1 T 3 D3 C U I U U s s r d Rd u ref u r T4 D4 T 2 D2 U g(1)m U d U r(1) Fig. 1: Block diagram of the power section d u s energy flow therefore depends on the angle between these I c U s(1)m two phasors. See the phasor diagram in Fig. 2a. IdAV U s i s(1) ? ? IsX s Is T 1,D 1 a) Ur I T 2,D 2 s U s U ? r I X T 3,D 3 s s Is X s Is ? T 4,D 4 b) Ur c) U s Fig. 3: Voltage and current waveforms in a PWM rectifier Fig. 2: Phasor diagrams controlling the rectifier in one of a number of ways, e.g., by pulse width modulation. Voltage and current under this con- The power transferred from the supply to the input termi- trol are shown in Fig. 3. nals of the rectifier is: One possible way of transistor switching is shown at the = UUsr d bottom of Fig. 3. It can be seen that two states alternate. First, PSR sin (1) X s thecurrentflowsintotheload(D1 and D2 conducts), and sec- ond, the input of the rectifier is shortcircuited (D and T = UI cos f,(2) 1 3 ss conducts). The grey areas mean that the transistor conducts. where Us RMS value of input supply voltage (V), The white areas mean, that the passive element conducts. The Ur RMS value of first harmonics consumed by AC transistor is turned off and the current flows through the rectifier input (V), antiparallel diode. The switching of devices must be precisely d phase displacement between phasors Us a Ur, synchronized with the supply voltage. W Xs input inductor reactance at 50Hz ( ), The output voltage of the rectifier U is usually controlled f d power factor. to a constant value by using another converter e.g. an in- In order to make the rectified voltage constant, the input verter. It is therefore possible, at a given current Id at the and output powers must be balanced. Then, as the phasor di- converter output, to assign to output voltage Ud aparticular agram in Fig. 2a shows: value of z and d. If we consider cos j =1and the power equal- d ity on the AC and DC side can be written as: f = sin IUsrcos ,(3) × X = zIsm()1 d s Id cos ,(7) 2 UU- cos d I sin f = sr .(4) s = 2UIdAV dAV X s I sm()1 .(8) Usm As long as the reactive power consumed is equal to zero, the power factor is equal to unity. Therefore (3) and (4) can be From the phasor diagram in Fig. 2b adapted to: wLI d = arctan sm()1 ,(9 = d IXss U rsin ,(5) Usm UU= cos d.(6)U sr U = sm . (10) gm()1 d Phasor diagrams of the rectifier, which works both, as a cos rectifier, and as an inverter, are shown in Figs. 2b and 2c. The rectifier controller can be made on the basis of these The aim is to control the rectifier in such a way that it con- equations. It is obvious that only two variables are needed for sumes harmonical current from the supply network, which such rectifier control. Firstly, the displacement angle d must is in phase with the supply voltage. This can be achieved by be controlled and the other necessary variable is z, © Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/ 85 Acta Polytechnica Vol. 48 No. 3/2008 uref z = , (11) u pil which is defined as the ratio of the modulation signal uref amplitude to the saw-voltage upil amplitude. During displace- ment angle d control, it is necessary to consider, that if d increases the current through the inductance, will also increase. For proper rectifier function, it is also necessary to syn- chronize the control algorithm with the supply voltage. By de- tecting the zero crossing, the controller controls the displace- ment angle d. The synchronization circuit must be very accu- rate and also fast and reliable. 5 Measurement results A functional sample of the PWM rectifier was built. The control algorithm was realized on the basis mentioned above. Four IGBT transistors act as the power part, and a MOTOROLA 56F508 controller microprocessor was chosen. Fig. 6: Harmonics analysis of the diode rectifier input current Simplified block diagram is shown in Fig. 4. Fig.