Performance analysis of various power converters employed in industrial applications

Abstract

The latest trend in industrial machineries and equipment is to utilize the solid state devices in power conversion techniques and controls. The high power industrial transistors made it possible for developing switched mode power supplies for industrial applications such as welding equipment, solar power conditioning units, motor drives, servo systems, cranes and hoists, evehicles, furnaces, induction heaters etc. This work integrates the different applications of inverter based circuits in industrial equipment, analyses the performance and suggests better control and design options. The popular inverter circuits used in industries for welding applications, solar power conversion and servo drives are analysed and the technological gaps faced by industries in developing custom based solutions for their engineering problems are identified in this work. Welding power sources are expected to meet the safety and performance requirements as per the international standards. The safety requirements of inverter power source used for continuous duty operation are discussed with reference to IEC 60974-1 with experimental results. The static volt-ampere characteristics of the inverter power source is determined in this work to study the nature of behavior for the intended welding application. The dynamic response and the volt-ampere characteristics of the welding power source during operation were captured in this work to study its dynamic performance under constant current operation and constant voltage applications. The inverter based welding power sources require complete replacement of the entire power source due to control and integration strategies used in the equipment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop cost ffective technologies for gate driver and other control boards that provide the similar quality of welding. In this thesis, an attempt has been made to design and develop a spare driver board which can be used in both constant current and constant voltage welding power sources and the results of the experiments are encouraging and show that there is an opportunity for indigenous development of other components as wel newline