Variable Slope Trapezoidal Circulating Current Injection to Attenuate Capacitor Voltage Ripple in Modular Multilevel Converter Based Variable Speed Motor Drives Application

TL;DR

This paper proposes a variable slope trapezoidal circulating current injection method to reduce capacitor voltage ripple in modular multilevel converters for variable-speed motor drives, improving efficiency and reducing device stress at low frequencies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel circulating current injection technique that outperforms existing methods in reducing capacitor voltage ripple and device stress in MMC-based motor drives.

Findings

Reduces peak circulating current by up to 50%.

Lowers capacitor voltage ripple at low frequencies.

Enhances converter efficiency and device longevity.

Abstract

The main challenge in using the Modular Multilevel Converter-based constant-torque variable-speed motor drives is increased sub-module capacitor voltage ripples (SM-CVR) at lowfundamental frequency operation, due to the inverse relationship between SM-CVR and operating frequency. To address this issue, a variable slope trapezoidal circulating current (CC) is injected along with square wave common-mode voltage (CMV). Compared to sinusoidal CC and sinusoidal CMV injection, the proposed injection technique can reduce the peak of the CC in the range of 0% to 50%, resulting in lesser device stress and improved efficiency. Simulation results of the proposed technique are presented, and they are further compared with the existing injection techniques to show the superiority