Paper

Decoupling Control of Paralleled Single-Phase GTO PWM

Converters for Electric Traction Drives

Dong-Choon Lee (School of Electical and Electronic Eng., Yeungnam Univ.)

Seung-Ki Sul (School of Electrical Eng., Seoul Nat. Univ.)

For parallel operating system of two single-phase GTO PWM converters, a coupling effect between two
secondary sides due to a common primary leakage inductance of the input transformer is analyzed and solved

by cross-compensation. With this strategy, the source current becomes more sinusoidal waveform. In addition,
an effective power factor control scheme considering the magnetizing current of the transformer is involved.
Experimental results for a laboratory system of 20kVA converter confirm the validity of the proposed

algorithm.

Key words : PWM converter, traction drive, leakage inductance, decoupling control

age inductance may well result so that it hinders the

1. Introduction
converter current to be controlled independently.
In electric traction drives, a GTO PWM converter In this paper, the coupling components are derived

system is usually used to supply dc power to the PWN analytically from the model combined with the PWM
inverter from a single-phase ac source. The GTO PW 1 converter and input transformer and an appropriate
converter gives a lot of advantages such as dc linl, control scheme to solve this problem is proposed. In

voltage control, input power factor control, sinusoida addition, the input power factor control considering the
source current control, and bidirectional power magnetizing current of the transformer is described in
flow, l)-(3) detail. The experimental results for laboratory 20kVA

To increase the power capacity of the converter GTO PWM converter system conform the validity of
system, the multiple single-phase GTO PWM converters the proposed decoupling control algorithm.
are usually operated in parallel. In addition, by parallel
2. Parallel Operation of Single-Phase GTO
operation, the ripple components of the source current
PWM Converters
can be reduced remarkably.
The PWM converter needs an inductor to boost ac <2.1> Parallel Operation The PWM converter
input voltage to higher dc output voltage". By the way, for traction drives is usually operated in parallel more
if the input transformer is designed to have large leak than two single-phase PWM converters in order to
age inductance, this inductor may be eliminated and increase the power capacity and to reduce the current
hence the weight of the traction drive system can be harmonics. Fig. 1. shows the power circuit of the parallel
reduced. In general, however, the windings of a mult system of the two single-phase GTO PWM converters.
iwinding transformer are each interlinked with the The input transformer has a common primary terminal
magnetic leakage fields of the other windings. Load and two secondary ones and large leakage inductance to
currents in one circuit affect voltages in another and a avoid incorporating additional boosting inductor. Since
lagging current in one winding may cause a voltage rise the switching frequency of the converter may not exceed
in one or more of the other windings"). The open circuit lkHz due to limitation of thermal loss even if the GTO
no-load voltage of a winding of a multiwinding trans instead of the conventional thyristor is used as switching
former will change when current flows in the other devices, the source current contains large ripples and
windings even though the winding itself remains unload harmonic components". The inductor in the link as
ed. Hence, a coupling problem between the two secon shown in Fig. 1 works as a turn-on snubber which limits
dary terminals due to the common large primary leak the current rate of the devices. In addition, it eliminates

1326 T. IEE Japan, Vol. 116-D, No. 12, '96

 Decoupling Control of Paralleled Single-Phase GTO PWM Converters for Electric Traction Drives

(3)

where,
v'p, i'p: voltage and current of the primary termi

nal
Vrl, is,: voltage and current of the secondary I
Vr2, isz: voltage and current of the secondary II

L'.: mutual inductance

L'tp : primary leakage inductance
Fig. 1. Parallel system of single-phase GTO PWM Lis,, L152: secondary leakage inductance
converters.
and all the primed quantities notated above are values
referred to the secondary.

Since the leakage inductances of the two secondary

sides can be assumed to be the same, the derivatives of
the converter current to be controlled are obtained
through some mathematical manipulation from (1) to
(3) as follows:

(4)
Fig. 2. PWM patterns of parallel converter.

(5)
where,

L'p, L,: primary and secondary self-inductance

(referred to the secondary).
The converter input voltages in (4) and (5) are

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of input transformer. expressed as

(6)
the ringing due to resonance between the dc capacitor (7)
and stray inductance of the wiring. where si and s2 are switching states (+1, -1, 0) of the
It is known that the source current ripples can be converter I and II, respectively and vac is the dc link
reduced remarkably when one PWM period is shifted voltage.
properly from the other PWM phase. Fig. 2 shows the
3. Decoupling Control
PWM switching patterns of the converter I and II shift
ed by half a period each other, where the switching <3.1> Cross Compensation In (4) , the current
frequency is 540Hz and the current control sampling of the converter I, is,, is varied by the voltage of v'p, vrl
period is 926 ps. and Vr2. However, it is desirable that isi is controlled
<2.2> System Modeling The equivalent circuit only by vr1 because vr, is a direct control input of is, and
of the input transformer referred to the secondary, of the other terms, v'p, and vrz, work adversely as a distur
which reason is that the converter control is performed bance. If is, is not controlled only by vrn, the perfor
on the secondary side, is illustrated in Fig. 3. With the mance of the current control is much deteriorated and
resistance neglected, the voltage equations of each ter the current waveform is distorted remarkably. This
minal are given by phenomenon is more significant when the converter
(1) input voltage is as low as near zero. Therefore, for high
performance control of is,, the effect of v'p and vrz
(2) should be compensated in any way. The effect of the

電 学 論D,116巻12号 ・ 平 成8年 1327

primary voltage v'p has usually compensated in feedfor and the converter current are controlled by PI control
ward, just like in the induction motor control where the ler. The output of the dc link voltage controller multi
back-emf is compensated in the same manner"'. How plied by the phase of the source voltage I*smag consists
ever, that of the opposite secondary winding voltage vr2 of the real component of the total converter current
has never been compensated as far as authors know. So, reference is*.Isp; is the reactive current reference which
a countermeasure againt this current distortion is will be described in later section. The converter I
proposed as below. current reference, is*,,is obtained by dividing is by two.
By compensating the effect of vr2 on is, in feedback The converter II current reference 4*2 is out of phase
control loop, is, can be controlled only by Vri regardless with i , by half a current sampling period in order to
of vr2. This compensation is a kind of decoupling control produce the zigzag modulation. From the converter
for disturbance. To determine the ratio by which is, is input voltage reference and the measured dc link volt
influenced by Vri and Vr2 in (4 ), each coefficient should be age, the gating pulse width is calculated and it is located
calculated. Being multiplied by Lts, the coefficient of symmetrically during each sampling period as shown in
the second term on the right-hand side of (4) is derived as Fig. 2.
The dotted block represents the decoupling current
(8)
control of the paralleled converters. If it is assumed that
where the primed quantities are the values referred to
L',p=L,s since only the sum of L'1p+L,s is given by
the secondary side. Then, that of the third term is
normal transformer test(", from (8) and (9 )
expressed as
(10)
(9)
and
The factor of K and K' means the ratio by which vr, and
(11)
Vr2 influence is,, respectively. That the sign of K and K'
is opposite each other is because that of the coefficient In practice, since L'm>>L'tp, K,~z2/3 and K'-1/3.
of vr, and vr2 in ( 4 ) is different. It means that is, is Using the transformer parameters given in following
decreased by Vri and is increased by Vr2 by the ratio of section, K=0.669 and K'=-0.331. The real values
K and absolute value of K', respectively, referring to the tuned by trial and error in experiment are that K=0.705
direction of the converter current in Fig. 3. Thus, the and K'=-0.295. From substituting these values in (8)
control error term of is, produced by an interference of and (9), we know that Lls would be 1.35 times of L'(p
Vr2 should be compensated for the is, controller via the with excluding measurement errors and other miscella
factor K' as shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, is, is controlled neous effects.
only by vri independent of the influence of vr2. On the other hand, the source voltage component and

The same statements described above are also applied inductance voltage drop are added to the current con

to isz related with Vr, in (5) . By cross-compensating for troller output in feedforward-type to improve the perfor
the coupling effect of multiwinding transformer with the mance of the current regulation. Feedforward compen

factor K', the converter currents is, and is2 can be sation of the source voltage enables the converter cur
controlled independently by vr, and vr2, respectively, as rent to be controlled only by the corresponding con

if the primary leakage inductance is absent, that is, K= verter input voltage.
1 and K'=0. There is a significant harmonic component of dc link
<3.2> Overall System Control Fig. 4 shows the output voltage at double the source frequency in the
overall control block diagram of the two paralleled single-phase converter. If this harmonic of the measured
single-phase GTO PWM converter. The dc link voltage dc link voltage is not eliminated and used for the voltage
feedback controller, the control performance of the dc
link voltage is much deteriorated. So, the 120Hz har
monic ripples are filtered by a low-pass filter, where the
filter type used is a second-order digital Butterworth
filter"' and the filter cut-off frequency ff is 100(Hz).
Since the filter causes a phase delay of 53' and a
magnitude reduction of 0.06, they should be compensat
ed.
Fig. 4. Overall system control block diagram.

1328 T. IEE Japan, Vol. 116-D, No. 12, '96

 Decoupling Control of Paralleled Single-Phase GTO PWM Converters for Electric Traction Drives

Fig. 5. Simplified equivalent circuit of the trans

former for power factor control. Fig. 6. Block diagram of input power factor con
trol.

4. Power Factor Control

For unity power factor, the converter input current is

usually controlled in phase with the source voltage. For

the present system having large magnetizing current due

to large leakage inductance, a power factor control
considering the magnetizing current should be perfor
med.

Fig. 5 shows the equivalent circuit of the transformer

for input power factor control, where the resistance is
neglected for simple analysis. Since the leakage in
Fig. 7. Phase detection between source voltage
ductance is assumed to be much smaller than the mutual and current.
inductance, the magnetizing current I'm is expressed as,
with the primary voltage as (12) error, a feedback control I nf2 of the phase difference is
(12) added to feedforward control as shown in Fig. 6.
(13) The total converter current reference is derived from
where Vp and Im are peak values of v'p, and i'p, respec the trigonometric combination of the real component
tively and cue is angular frequency of the source voltage. from the dc link voltage controller and the reactive
The primary current is given by component from the power factor controller as (16),
which is shown in left part of Fig. 4. Even though the
(14) winding resistance and the leakage inductance are neg
where, is the phase difference between the primary lected in this analysis, the power factor control is well
voltage and current and Ip is peak value of i'p. performed as desired since it is a closed-loop type using
From the equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 5, the PI controller.
(15) Next, a phase difference detection for the power
Substituting (13) and (14) into (15), factor control is described. The instantaneous primary
voltage and current are read into the digital signal

(16) processor and filtered by the second-order Butterworth

where, digital filter. This filter causes the phase delay too, but

(17) the phase difference between the voltage and current is

(18) not altered. A saw-tooth waveform is formed according

It is noted from (16) that Ismag and Ispf correspond to the to the polarity of the filtered quantities PP and ip as

magnitude of the real current and the reactive current, shown in Fig. 7. The angle between the zero-crossing

respectively. By controlling the phase angle c, the point of the rising voltage and that of the rising current
reactive power flow as well as power factor can be is counted digitally and defined as phase angle such as

controlled.
If the reference of the phase angle cp* is given, the
reactive current reference ipfiin steady state is calcu
5. Experimental Results
lated from (18) using the magnitude of the magnetizing
and primary currents. It is a kind of feedforward control A 20kVA laboratory system which consists of the two

for power factor, which yields faster transient response single-phase GTO PWM converter was set up. The

than only with feedback control°91. For zero steady-state system parameters are follows:

電 学 論D,116巻12号,平 成8年 1329

 • input transformer : 220V/150V , R'p=0.03452, Rs= because the converter I current is more influenced by the
0.03452, L'tp=1.118mH, Lt =Liz=1.118mH, L'm=44. switching state of the converter II than at other points,
8mH (referred to the secondary) transformer ratio a= and the same is for the converter II current.
1.466 With decoupling control, the converter current and

dc link voltage : 330V the source current can be controlled to be more

•E dc link capacitor: 16400,uF sinusoidal waveform as shown in Fig. 9. It is also demon
• switching frequency: 540Hz strated that the source current ripple is reduced remark
A high speed DSP TMS320C30 is used as a main ably compared with each converter input current and

processor so that instantaneous control without calcula that input power factor is controlled as unity.
tion time delay is feasible by executing the control Fig. 10 illustrates the harmonic spectrum of the two
algorithm during the minimum turn on/off time of the converter currents and the source current, from which it
GTO. is noted that the sideband harmonics near double the
Fig. 8 shows the distortion of the source current ip converter switching frequency (1020Hz, 1140Hz) are
without decoupling control. When the converter input eliminated. The input power factor is controlled as
voltage is near zero the current is much distorted, desired, as shown in Fig. 11. Fig. 12 and 13 show the
transient responses of dc link voltage in case of power
ing and regenerating, respectively. The dc link voltage is
perturbed for an impact load but it follows its reference

Fig. 8. Distorted source current waveform ip with

out decoupling control.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 9. Waveforms in steady state.

(a), (b) input current of converter I, II
(c) source voltage (d) source current

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 11. Power factor control (top: source volt

Fig. 10. Harmonic spectrum. age, bottom : source current).
(a) (b) input current of converter I, II (a) unity p. f. (q =0') (b) lagging p. f. ((p =-30)
(c) source current (c) leading p. f. (,p=15•‹)

1330 T. IEE Japan, Vol. 116-D, No. 12, '96

 Decoupling Control of Paralleled Single-Phase GTO PWM Converters for Electric Traction Drives

Experimental results for a laboratory system of

20kVA converter confirm the validity of the proposed
algorithm.

References

(1) Sakae Ishikawa, S. Tanaka, S. Tadakuma, and E. Takahara:

"Consideration on High Quality AC Traction Motor Drives
Using PWM Converters", Trans. on IEEJ, vol. 107-D, no. 3,
pp. 304-311, 1987.
(2) L. J. J. Offringa and W. A. G. De. Janger,: "Modeling and
Control of a 4-Quadrant Pulse Modulated Line-Side Con
verter for 25kVA, 50Hz-Supplied Traction Equipment", ERE
proc., Firenze, pp. 1-105-1-100, 1991.
(3) B. T. Ooi, J. C. Salmon, J. W. Dixon, and A. B. Kulkarni: "A 3
Fig. 12. Transient responses for impact loading -Phase Controlled Current PWM Converter with Leading
(10kW). Power Factor", IEEE IAS Conf. Rec., pp. 1008-1014, Oct.,
(a) dc link voltage (b) input current of converter 1985.
I (4) S. A. Stigant and A. C. Franklin : The J & P Transformer
Book, Butterworth & Co., 1973.
(c) output of voltage controller (d) source cur (5) B. K. Bose: "Recent Advances in Power Electronics", IEEE
rent Trans. on Power Electronics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 2-16, 1992.
(6) T. Sukegawa, K. Kamiyama, J. Takahashi, T. Ikimi, and M.
Matsutake: "A Multiple PWM GTO Line-Side Converter for
Unity Power Factor and Reduced Harmonics", IEEE IAS
(a) Conf. Rec., pp. 279•`284, 1991.
(7) G. R. Slemon and A. Straughen: Electric Machines, Addison
Wesley Publishing Co., 1980.
(b) (8) R. W. Hamming : Digital Filters, Prentice-Hall International
Editions, 1989.
(9) N. R. Zargari and G. Joos : "An On-Line Operated Unity
Power Factor PWM Rectifier For AC Drive Applications",
(c) IEEE IAS Conj. Rec., pp. 673-678,1994.

(d)
Dong-Choon Lee was born in Korea, in 1963. He received B.

S., M. S. and Ph. D. degrees in all electrical

engineering from Seoul National University,
Fig. 13. Transient responses for impact unloading
( 10M. Korea, in 1985, 1987, and 1993, respectively. He
(a) dc link voltage (b) input current of converter had been a research engineer in Daewoo
I Heavy Industry from 1987 to 1988. He has been
(c) output of voltage controller (d) source cur a faculty of the School of Electrical and Elec
rent
tronic Engineering at Yeungnam University in

rapidly by the voltage controller. Is ag is the output of dc Korea since 1994. His research interests include electric machines,
adjustable speed ac motor drives, static power converter, and
link voltage controller which represents the real power
control theory applications.
component.

6. Conclusion
Seung-Ki Sul (S'78-M'87) was born in Korea, in 1958. He
In parallel operating system of the single-phase GTO received B. S., M. S. and Ph. D. degrees in elec
PWM converters for traction drives, an analytical solu trical engineering from Seoul National Univer
tion is presented and implemented to eliminate the inter sity, Korea, in 1980, 1983 and 1986, respective

ference between each converter control due to the large ly. He had been with the Department of Elec
trical and Computer Engineering at University
primary leakage inductance of the input transformer.
of Wisconsin-Madison as an associate research
With this strategy the source current can be more
from 1986 to 1988. After that he had joined
sinusoidal waveform and due to the parallel operation
with Gold-Star Industrial Systems Company as a principal
the ripples of ac source current are reduced ramarkably.
research engineer 1988 to 1990. Since 1991, he has been a faculty
In addition, an effective power factor control scheme of the School of Electrical Engineering at Seoul National Univer
considering the magnetizing current of the transformer sity. His current research interests are in power electronic control
is presented, by which the source power factor is of electric machine, electric vehicle drives, power converter cir

controlled as unity, thus the reactive component of the cuit, and industrial applications.

converter input current can be controlled.

“dŠw˜_D,
116Šª12•†,•½•¬8”N 1331