The Ninth International Conference on Electronic Measurement & Instruments ICEMI2009

Application of Hybrid Active Power Filter in Net shorts Harmonic Suppression

of Electric Arc Furnace
Wei Wei, Peng Xue, Lai Wei
School Electrical & Electronic Engineering Changchun University of Technology
Changchun, Jilin Province, China
Email: weiwei@mail.ccut.edu.cn

Abstract Electric arc furnace is the main equipment in
ferroalloy production. They cause serious harmonic pollution,
and affect the power quality seriously. In this paper, the active
filter and passive filter advantages and disadvantages were
analyzed, and we adopt Hybrid active power filter to achieve
harmonic suppression and then improve the power quality
according to the actual situation. In the design process, how
to determine active filter and passive filter ratio is a important
aspect. Genetic Algorithm was proposed in order to solve this
problem, and circuit topology was analyzed. In the end, we
calculated the harmonic suppression circuits best structure of
electric arc furnace and carried out a simulation.
Keywords harmonic suppression, hybrid active power filter,
power quality, Genetic Algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
At present, power quality is a key concern for the
metallurgy industry. The vast use of power converters
and non-linear loads has contributed for the
deterioration of the power quality. Three-phase electric
arc furnace is the main process equipment for
production of ferroalloy, its harmonic pollution caused
by non-linear, shock and fluctuations load is serious. It
makes waveform distortion (harmonics), voltage
fluctuations, flicker and three-phase unbalanced to
short-net power system, non symmetrical and load
volatility has become increasingly serious.
This problem is even more seriously because of the
use of shunt capacitors installed in distribution systems
for power factor correction. Generally , these capacitive
filters are designed taking into only the fundamental
frequency of the electric utility, 50 or 60 Hz. The
harmonic wave propagation generated by power
electronic equipments may cause harmonic resonance
between the line inductances and the shunt capacitors.
Researches on harmonic damping motion in distribution
systems are in advanced stage and the use of active
filters have presented good results. Interfered by voltage
fluctuation and current harmonic, influenced by low
power quality and other factors, the external auxiliary
equipment is in dynamic instability status at all times.
With additional losing, it reduces the reliability and
longevity of equipments. Also it seriously affects the
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978-1-4244-3864-8/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE
security of other electrical equipment and economic
operation. Take the 16500kVA furnace of Jilin
Ferroalloy as an example, its reactive power achieves
9200kvar, harmonic content is up to 6% ~ 9%, contrast
with harmonic voltage and current limits to short-short
power system of power quality public power system
harmonics GB14549-1993, the current harmonic
pollution caused by electric arc furnace has seriously
overweight.
At present, the suppression device to harmonic
pollution divides into passive harmonic filters and
active filters. Passive filter alone has the characteristics
of low-cost and simple structure, but the filtering effect
is seriously affected by the grid impedance and changes
of their parameters, and easy to generate resonance of
series and parallel with the power system impedance;
HAPF becomes hot of practical application research
which combines small-capacity active power filter with
big-capacity passive filter.
This structure can alleviate problems that affect
electrical installations is of great interest. The devices
based on power electronics directed to meliorate power
quality are denominated as Custom Power.
II. URE CTIVE FILTERS AND HYBRID ACTIVE
FILTERS
The main methods to meliorate the power quality
have the technologies of passive power filter, active
power filter and hybrid active power filter. Compared
with the passive power filter technology, active power
filter technology has the advantages of small impact of
power grid impedance, dynamic tracking, and integrated
compensation for power quality. It plays a leading role
in controlling the pollution of power supply system.
However, the iron alloy electric arc furnace is a high-
power of the three-phase rectifier load. It is not
economical to use a separate active power filter to
improve the power quality of the system.
Hybrid active power filter is a new type of filter, it
can compensate harmonic which has the varied
frequency and size and realize the dynamic harmonic
suppression [4]. Compared to the traditional LC filter
composed with capacitors, inductors and resistances and
shunt active power filter, it has more flexible
application and smaller physical size.

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Therefore, the power quality compensation system passive filter is represented by L fs , R fs and C fs .
based on a hybrid active power filter is advanced. Using
the low-cost of passive compensation devices and easy These components are a 2 mH inductor, a 6PF
to provide large volumes of reactive power capacitor, and a 3.5 : resistor.
compensation and harmonic current, it can achieve the
aim of a reasonable reduced the capacity of active
power filter and give full play to dynamic tracking
compensation function of active power filter. Thus, the
investment is saved and the better compensation effect
can be also achieved.
Fig.1 [1-2] and Fig.2 [3] show the ordinary circuit
construction of the hybrid active filters. Fig. 1 shows
the combination of a series active filter and a shunt
passive filter, the entire circuit is composed of inductor,
capacitor and resistor. It analysis the effect of 5th, 7th
and 11th harmonic component. Hybrid active filters
Fig. 3 Test system of hybrid active filter controller
retain the advantages of active filters and have not the
drawbacks of passive and active filters.
The shunt passive filters [6] connected to the
electrified wire netting after the series active condition
III. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
has the properties shown in Table 1. Eventually, circuit
breakers are employed to connect the series shunt
Fig.3[3]shows the short-net electric arc furnace test passive filters and the series active filters. These circuit
system that was analysed through MATLAB
breakers are described in Fig. 3 by CB1 , CB2 and CB3 .
simulations. The passive filters were devised to
Table 1. Passive filters properties
compensate harmonic currents produced by a three-
pulse thyristor rectifier. A series of RL circuits via a 2.5 3th order
 resistor and a 45 mH inductor are connected to the L = 1.2 mH F = 195 Hz
passive
C = 420 uF Q = 4.56
direct current side of the rectifier, and the thyristor filter
operate with a conduction angle of 60. 5th order
L = 1.2 mH F = 265 Hz
passive
C = 350 uF Q = 6.86
filter
7th order
L = 1.2 mH F = 336Hz
passive
C = 190 uF Q = 7.86
filter
L = 255 uH
High-pass F = 1.82kHz
C = 300 uF
filter Q = 3.12
R=5

IV. OPTIMIZATION BY GENETIC ALGORITHM

FIG. 1 Combination of a series active filter and a shunt passive filter
The main objective of this work is to improve the
power quality of the short-net with respect to the
variation of the frequency. In order to achieve this
target, we must solve a problem about the hybrid active
power filter parameter matching, as well as some
passive and active part of the rational allocation of
capacity.
The equivalent circuit of PQC that has been
considered in this study is showed in Figure 4. In the
figure, primary side is a network side and the secondary
side is a PWM step-down converter side.
The parameters contained in this analysis are:
FIG. 2 Series connection of an active filter and a passive filter 1) Alter ratio of series and shunt electrical
inductances of the PQC;
A passive circuit has application in the output voltage of
2) Commutation reactors Laand Lb;
the series active filter in order to compensate the ripple
on the generated compensation voltages [5]. This 3) High-pass filters Ca and Rafor the shunt active

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filter, Cb and Rb for the series active filter.
Fig. 4 Power quality principle in single device
The ratio of the transformers is rooted and is 2:3 for
series shunt three-phase transformer and 3:2 for the
single-phase transformer. The PWM step-down
converter is simulated as voltage source, while the shunt
PWM step-down converter as current source. Harmonic
generating loads are simulated as generic current source
[7]
. population is then used in the next iteration of the
The equivalent network inductance Ln is 0.9 mH .
According to Figure 4, the high pass filter impedance of
the shunt PWM step-down converter is
2 the population. If the algorithm has finished due to the
Z1a 3
Rb  1
(1)
2
jZC f
Z1a in series with network reactor impedance
referred to secondary series single-phase transformer is
presented by
2
Z 3
2ns 2 
ICEMI2009
The total impedance Z r which is connected to the
power supply, when there is no load is
Zr jZ Ln  Z1a  Z1b (8)
The basic principles of Genetic Algorithm (GA)
were first proposed by Holland [8]. It is inspired by the
mechanism of natural selection where stronger
individuals would likely be the winners in a competing
environment. Genetic algorithms are carried out by
computer simulation which a population of abstract
representations of candidate solutions to an optimization
problem evolves toward better solutions. Traditionally,
solutions are represented in binary as strings of 1s and
2s, but other encodings are also feasible. The evolution
usually starts from the population of randomly
generated individuals and happens in generations. In
every generation, the fitness of every individual in the
population is evaluated; multi-individuals are
stochastically selected from the current population, and
modified to form a type of new population. The new
algorithm. Commonly, the algorithm terminates when
either the maximum number of generations has been
engender, or a satisfactory fit level has been reached for
maximum number of generations, a satisfactory solution
can or cannot have been reached [9].
Table displays GA parameters.
Table 2. GA parameters
Z1 f  jZ Ln (2)  N
Parameter Value
Z 2ns parallel with high pass filter impedance of o
series PWM step-down converter is presented by 1 Selection Roulette
1 2 Population size 10
Z 2 ns Rs 
jZ Cs 3 Mutation rate 0.002
Z11s (3)
1 4 Generation number 50
Z 2 ns  Rs 
jZ Cs
5 Crossover rate 0.7
The ratio of V1 to V2 is 6 Tolerance 10-6
V1 Z11s
(4)
V2 Z11s  jZ Ls Table3. Parameters for the power circuit
The impedance of series PWM step-down converter
Cases 1 2 3 4 5
referred to primary is
1 Rf : 1 3 3 2.5 10
jZ Ls Ra 
2
2
jZ Ca
Z1a (5) Lf( mH ) 2 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
3 1
jZ La  Ra  Cs  P F  140 50 50 30 70
jZ Ca
Z1s in series with network impedance referred to Rs  :  30 10 3 4 18
secondary of shunt single-phase transformer is Ls( mH ) 2 0.5 0.2 0.5 0.4
2
3
Z 2n  Z1a  jZ Ln  (6) Cs  P F  12 50 50 6 100
2
The ratio of I1 to I 2 is
1 V. SIMULATION AND DISCUSSION
Rb 
I1 jZ Cb
(7) In order to analyse the instantaneous performance of
I2 1
Z 2 n  Rb  the hybrid active filter, Figure 5 presents a 50 ms
jZ Cb

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interval with the voltage at the 545 kV power grids, the
output voltage generated by the active part of the series
hybrid active filter and the current at the hybrid active
filter for single-phase. At this interval the active filter
produced a fundamental voltage in counter-phase with
the fundamental-current and a 3th harmonic voltage in
single phase with the 5th harmonic current at the
passive filters, in order to discharge the capacitors and
protect the passive filters respectively.
The comparison between before-compensation and
after-compensation of the voltage harmonic are shown
in Figure 6.
Fig. 5 output voltage produced by the active portion of the hybrid
filter
Fig. 6 Comparison voltage
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper a type of genetic algorithm that
modulates the power quality by solving GA parameters
was tried out. hybrid active power filter reduce the
amount of energy required to supply non-linear and
reactive loads. Energy demands on utility power can be
reduced by as much as 20 percent when
harmonics are reduced to less than 5 percent and power
factor is improved to better than 0.95. We calculated the
harmonic suppression circuits best structure of electric
arc furnace and carried out a MATLAB simulation.
Results indicate that we can achieve satisfactory
consequence by adopting hybrid active power filter to
achieve harmonic suppression and improve the power
quality.
ICEMI2009
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