Control of MW-Scale High-Frequency 'SiC+Si' Multilevel ANPC Inverter in Pump-Back Test for Aircraft Hybrid-Electric Propulsion Applications

Di Pan, Di Zhang, Jiangbiao He, Chris Immer, Mark E. Dame

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Scopus citations

Abstract

High-power-density high-speed electric motors for aircraft hybrid-electric propulsion (HEP) applications require high fundamental output frequency from power inverters. Conventional silicon (Si)-based megawatt (MW)-scale power inverters typically have low switching frequency that is not sufficient to meet the dynamic and harmonic requirements for such applications. An MW-scale medium-voltage three-level active neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) inverter based on a hybrid utilization of silicon carbide (SiC) and Si power devices (i.e., 'SiC+Si') has been developed for high-speed HEP drive applications, which has a rated output frequency of 1.4 kHz at 1-MW active power. To evaluate the power capability and efficiency of this ANPC inverter in the laboratory, power pump-back tests need to be carried out. In this article, control methods for single- and three-phase inverter pump-back tests have been developed to evaluate the performance of such high-frequency propulsion drives. The implementation and experimental results are presented to verify the efficacy of the control methods and the performance of the MW-scale 'SiC+Si' ANPC inverters.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8949451
Pages (from-to)1002-1012
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.

Keywords

  • High-frequency control
  • high-speed motor drive
  • hybrid-electric propulsion (HEP)
  • multilevel inverter
  • pump-back test

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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