Filters for Active Front End Motor Drives Anirudh Acharya, Shankar Murthy, Vinod John Dept. of Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, India 560012 Abstract—Present day IGBT based power adjustable speed drives have fast turn-ON and turn-OFF times results in high dv/dt being applied to the motor terminals. The high dv/dt switching waveforms along with travelling wave effects of long cables stress motor insulation, cause high ground currents and affects the motor bearings. These issues are exacerbated in PWM Active Front End (AFE) rectifier based motor drives when compared to one using a diode rectifier. This paper briefly outlines problem associated with IGBT technology based ASD with AFE rectifier using long cables. The common mode voltage due to such motor drive with AFE rectifier is analysed. An integrated approach for filter design is discussed wherein the adverse effects of both AFE rectifier and the drive inverter are addressed on both common and differential mode basis. The proposed topology address the problems of common mode voltage, common mode current and voltage doubling due to ASD. The design procedure for this proposed filter topology is discussed with experimental results that validate the effectiveness of the filter. Index Terms—Active front end converter, Common mode voltage, dv/dt filter, Common mode filter. I. I NTRODUCTION IGBT technology based Adjustable Speed Drives (ASD) using Active Front End (AFE) converter is widely used today. Advantages of using IGBT based power converter are as following, • High switching frequency. • Smaller turn-ON and turn-OFF times, this reduces switching losses. • Advance PWM techniques can be used for control. Some of the applications that require long cable between the motor and the power converter. In this case it has been observed that the voltage at the motor terminal doubles during switching transients as compared to voltage at inverter end [1]. Also the high dv/dt at the inverter end due to faster turn-ON and turn-OFF times leads to problems such as [1]–[12], • Increased ground currents apart from voltage doubling at motor terminal. • Bearing damage and insulation failure at load end. • EMI/EMC concerns. The DC bus energized using three phase diode bridge rectifiers injects lower order harmonics into grid. When this is not desirable along with the need for regenerative capabilities, AFE converter is a suitable alternative [13], [14]. ISRO-IISc Space Technology Cell project: ISTC244. T.Saboo DDH, CMF / QCMG AVN - VSSC Indian Space Research Organization Trivandrum, India Though AFE converters eliminates lower order harmonics, it inject high frequency electrical noise. Also, the high dv/dt excites the capacitive coupling which leads to increased ground currents. The problem becomes predominant as the converters are usually switched in the range of few tens of kilo hertz. The electrical noise produced by such AFE converter combines with the electrical noise due to PWM inverter and appear at the load. This aggravates the problems at the motor end. Zero sequence injected carrier based PWM techniques (CSVPWM) are quite often used in AFE operation as DC bus utilization is better [15]. Such PWM techniques make it difficult to arrive at suitable topology for using higher order filter with AFE converter due to presence of third harmonic component [16]. The standards such as CISPR 22 and IEC 61000 specify the limits on the current injection into the ground by power converter for commercial and domestic applications. NEMA MG-1, part 31 recommends the maximum allowable dv/dt that can be applied at the motor terminal for safe operation. To meet these regulations different solutions are adopted to mitigate the ill effects. The passive filters are most widely adopted to address these issues [17]–[23]. One of the filter configuration which eliminates the voltage doubling at motor terminal and reduces the common mode current without substantially increasing the size and cost is dv/dt filter. If the filter required is only to address the voltage doubling at motor terminal then resonant frequency of the filter can be above the switching frequency. With such a filter the size of the circuit components reduces. Damping of such filter is quite difficult, instead the output is clamped to the desired DC bus voltage. Clamping filters are proposed in literature [18], [19]. The filter topology presented in [18] does not address the common mode component, this shortcoming was overcome in subsequent design proposed in [19] by connecting the neutral of the filter to DC bus midpoint (O). However design procedure and implications are not discussed. Capacitors are introduced between DC bus positive rail to ground and negative rail to ground which eliminates common mode voltage due to AFE converter [24], [25]. This method cannot be used directly with AFE converter ASD as the ground current would now carry the third harmonic current on common mode basis due to CSVPWM and switching current components. The explicit design procedure for selection of filter component are not discussed. Reduced common mode voltage PWM techniques are used to minimize the effect but this also constraints the line to line output performance [26]. The filter discussed in [27] address the elimination of high frequency leakage current with AFE converter. Therefore it becomes necessary to address the filter design considering the type of drive. So that at the entire filter can be embedded as a part of the ASD. This paper briefly outlines problem associated with IGBT technology based ASD with Active Front End (AFE) converter using long cable and different mitigation techniques used to address the issues. The common mode voltage due to such converter with AFE converter is discussed in detail. An integrated approach for filter design is discussed wherein the adverse effects of both AFE converter and the inverter is addressed. The proposed topology is as shown in Fig. 1, which address the problems of common mode voltage, common mode current and voltage doubling due to ASD. The design procedure for this proposed filter topology is discussed with experimental results that validate the effectiveness of the filter. Section II discusses adverse effects of long cable ASD and its mitigation techniques. Section III expains the common mode voltage and current, also emphasizes the effect of common mode voltage due to AFE converter on load. Section IV outlines the design objectives of the proposed filter. Section V covers the working principle and design of the proposed motor side filter. Section VI describes the common mode circuit and design of proposed common mode DC bus filter. Section V discuss the experimental results. II. F ILTER D ESIGN O BJECTIVES The design of ASD has to account the electrical noises introduced by modern PWM converters. This demands end to end solutions, wherein the electrical noises are minimized or eliminated with suitable filter topology as an integral part of the ASD system. The filter has to address both common mode and differential mode components. The design procedure needs to be independent of the load, but in most cases the load has to be considered to effectively mitigate the problem. Further to address deleterious effects of CMV the presence of AFE converter has to be taken into account and retain the electrical noises generated within the system. This adds to the complexity of designing the filter. The filter design here address two aspects, • Elimination of voltage doubling at motor terminal and minimizing CMC. • To eliminate the CMV effects of AFE converter on the load and restrict the electrical switching noise within the ASD system. 4) Easily scalable for high power drives without increasing the cost and size of the filter significantly. To meet the aforementioned constraint a dv/dt filter is used. The filter addresses both common mode and differential mode noise with slight modification of topology. The dv/dt filter design, the dv/dt requirement, resonating frequency selection, peak current in filter and semiconductor, resulting power loss is used to select the filter component, explained in section V. B. Design Objectives for Common Mode DC Bus Filter To address the CMV due to AFE converter capacitors are introduced between DC bus positive rail to ground and negative rail to ground which eliminates common mode voltage [25], [24]. The proposed filter achieves filtering of the high frequency CMV while preventing the low frequency third harmonic currents from flowing into the ground. The proposed DC bus common mode filter is as shown in Fig. 1, mid-point M is connected to LCL filter neutral N which is connected to ground through capacitor CMg . The key design aspects for the proposed common mode filter is, 1) To eliminate the CMV propagation to load side due to AFE operation, thereby eliminating the increase in CMC current. 2) To circulate the switching and lower order harmonic current within the system allowing advance PWM techniques to be adopted for AFE operation. The DC bus common mode filter is explained along with the methods used to select the filter components in section VI. TABLE I D ESIGNED dv/dt FILTER VALUES Sl.No. F ILTER PARAMETER PER UNIT ACTUAL 1 Resonant frequency fres 800 40kHz 2 Resonant current ires 0.5 7A 3 Filter inductance Lf 0.0083 0.5mH 4 Filter Capacitance Cf 0.0002 33nF 5 Snubber capacitance Cs 0.54 100µF 6 Snubber Resistor Rs 2.31 40Ω 7 Switching frequency fsw 40 2kHz TABLE II D ESIGNED COMMON MODE DC BUS FILTER VALUES S L .N O . PARAMETER P ER U NIT A CTUAL 1 DC bus voltage Vdc 2.92 700V A. Design Objectives for Motor Filter 2 Switching frequency (AFE) fsw 200 10kHz The proposed dv/dt filter (LC resonant clamp filter) topology is as shown in the Fig. 1 at inverter output. The key aspects of this design are, 1) To eliminate the voltage doubling at the motor terminal by varying the dv/dt of applied voltage. 2) Reduce the size and cost of the filter such that it can be integrated with the power circuit of the converter. 3) Minimization of CMC. 3 Frequency (LCL filter)fres 20 1kHz 4 CM Resonant Frequency fcom 28 1.4kHz 5 Filter Inductance L1 0.0455 2.5mH 6 Filter Inductance L2 0.0455 2.5mH 7 Filter Capacitance Clf 0.1 20µF 8 DC Bus Filter Cy1 = Cy2 0.05 10µF 9 Filter Capacitor CMg 0.0005 100nF ISRO-IISC STC SYMPOSIUM 3 Fig. 1. Schematics of an active front end motor drive with integrated LCL and DC bus common mode filter for grid and dv/dt filter at inverters terminal for motor. Fig. 2. Waveforms showing (a) ch1: Line to line voltage (VRY ) at the inverter end and ch2: motor end voltage VU V showing doubling at motor terminal, and ch3: the resulting line current (IR ) without any filter. (b) ch1: Pole voltage (VRO ), ch3: filter capacitor voltage (VCf ), ch4: motor terminal to ground voltage (VUg ) and ch1: common mode current on the motor side. Scale: voltage-500V/div, current-5A/div, time-5µs. Fig. 3. Measured DC bus voltage, line current and common mode voltage waveforms at startup of the AFE rectifier for Vdc =700V with an inductive grid side filter and no common mode filter. Scale: voltage-500V/div, current5A/div and time-500ms/div. III. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS A three phase, 10kVA, 415V back-to-back connected power converter prototype is built in the laboratory to demonstrate the effectiveness of the filter. The base values are Pbase = 10kV A, Vbase = 240V and fbase = 50Hz. The inverter is switched at 2.5kHz and the AFE rectifier is switched at 10kHz. A 100m long PVC coated four core cable is used to demonstrate the voltage doubling at motor terminal. The load is a three phase, 415V, 10kW, 50Hz star connected induction motor which is controlled using V/F scheme. The front end is controlled using vector control method [15]. Altera cyclone II FPGA platform is used for implementation of control algorithm. In Fig. 2(a) comparison between the applied inverter voltage and motor terminal is made along with the line current in the absence of dv/dt filter. The motor terminal voltage rises beyond two times as compared to applied voltage. Also, the effect of line to line parasitic capacitor is seen on the line current during this transient. Fig. 2(b) shows the applied inverter voltage, the dv/dt filter capacitor voltage, motor terminal to ground voltage along with the ground current with the motor side filter connected. The pole voltage VRO has Fig. 5. Measured waveforms showing (a) ch1: Common mode voltage VOg (50V/div), ch2: Voltage across capacitor CMg (200V/div), ch4: ground current Icom1 (2A/div) for CSVPWM at Vdc =300V with LCL line side filter with floating N and with mid-point M connected to ground (b) ch1: Common mode voltage VOg (50V/div), ch2: voltage across capacitor CMg (50V/div), ch3: current circulating within the system Icomc (5A/div)and ch4: ground current Icom1 (200mA/div) for CSVPWM, at Vdc =300V with the complete filter configuration. a very sharp rising edge that is altered by the dv/dt filter evident from VCf . The voltage doubling at the motor terminal is eliminated and the ground currents are minimized. The DC bus is boosted from a pre-charged value of 600V to 700V using AFE rectifier. Fig. 3 shows the boosting action of DC bus along with the converter current side current and Fig. 4. Measured CMV and CMC waveforms at the motor terminal due to long cable for the circuit configurations: (a) Using diode bridge as front end and no filter, (b) ASD using PWM rectifier as front end and only LCL grid side filter, (c) ASD using PWM rectifier as front end along with DC bus common mode filter and not motor side dv/dt filter, and (d) ASD using PWM rectifier as front end along with DC bus common mode filter and dv/dtf ilter. Scale: voltage-250V/div, current-0.5A/div, time-100µs). common mode voltage appearing between mid-point of the DC bus to ground VOg . The CMV due to diode bridge rectifier and AFE rectifier is clearly marked. It is clear that the CMV due to AFE rectifier is predominant and needs to be restrained from appearing at the load terminals. The common mode current injection to ground gets significant during AFE rectifier operation as compared to three phase diode bridge rectifier. When the DC bus Y-capacitors connected to positive and negative rail is grounded, switching current and harmonic current flow in to ground as shown in Fig. 5(a) for CSVPWM. To illustrate the current injection to ground, AFE converter operation is carried out at 300V DC bus without load in order to keep the common mode resonant component with in limits. Both switching and third harmonic current flow into ground (Icom1 ) is seen in case of CSVPWM. Also, the voltage between N ′ to ground (VNg ) is high when the neutral connection of the LCL filter is left floating. The proposed topology is obtained by connecting mid-point M to neutral of LCL filter N ′ . The Fig. 5(b) shows CMV VOg , voltage across capacitor CMg , Icomc and ground current Icom1 for CSVPWM. The potential at M with respect to ground is reduced, using CMg significantly higher than parasitic capacitance. Compared to VOg without any filter (Fig. 3) the voltage after DC bus filter is significantly attenuated. For CSVPWM with DC bus filter, the frequency of VOg is now three times fundamental frequency and magnitude varies slowly for AFE operation resulting in quieter DC bus. This illustrates the effectiveness of the DC bus common mode filter. The CMV and CMC appearing at the motor neutral with three diode bridge rectifier based ASD and AFE converter based ASD is shown in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b). To illustrate the adverse effect of CMV the DC bus is boosted to 400V to keep the currents and voltage at motor terminals within safe limits. The CMC voltage due to AFE converter rides on the CMV due to inverter, this leads to increased frequency of occurrence of CMC. This is as anticipated from the simulation results shown in section II. Fig. 4(c) shows the CMV and CMC at motor neutral terminal to ground with the DC bus common mode filter connected but the motor filter is removed. This effectively shows the elimination of CMV due to AFE converter, but still the inverter CMV has high dv/dt. This reduces the frequency TABLE III T HE GROUND CURRENT, INVERTER OUTPUT VOLTAGE dv/dt, VOLTAGE BETWEEN NEUTRAL POINT M TO GROUND VMg WITH AND WITHOUT dv/dt FILTER AND CM BUS FILTER . Vdc (V) Filter Parameter No filter with filter 700 dv/dt Peak Ground Current (A) Output dv/dt (V/µs) 7 3500 0.4 100 300 CM Peak Ground Current (A) Peak Voltage VMg (V) 2.5 150 0.2 20 of occurrence of CMC current but still retains high magnitude due to high dv/dt of CMV produced by inverter. By adding the dv/dt filter the CMC magnitude is reduced apart from eliminating voltage doubling at motor terminal as shown in Fig. 4(d). IV. E FFECT OF F ILTERING Most sensitive measuring equipments and power supplies to control cards are referenced to the ground. The noise generated due to AFE based ASD hinders the normal operation of these equipments, due to increased electrical conducted and radiated noise as result of high dv/dt, and can affect the accuracy and reliability of measurement. The cost to equipment that are that are immune to conducted and radiated noises increases due to the added necessity to shield each sensor and measurement channel, addition of isolated ground and to filter power supply leads. The proposed filter topology diverts the noise away from the referenced ground by providing circulating path within the motor drive converter itself. Also, the reduced dv/dt at the inverter output decreases the radiated high frequency noise. Table. III shows the magnitude of currents before and after filter. The peak currents from the motor due to PWM operation reduces from 7A spikes to about 0.4A leading to improved compatibility of the proposed motor drive with neighbouring equipment. V. C ONCLUSION The overall filter topology and the design procedure is outlined for a AFE rectifier based ASD. The need for designing the filter from an overall drive system perspective is briefly outlined. A design methodology to exploit the advantage of LCL filter using dv/dt filter for differential mode circuit is proposed. Effective and simple design procedure for dv/dt filter is proposed. Analysis of DC bus filter is discussed based on common mode circuit. The common mode DC bus filter restraints the high frequency CMV due to AFE converter from effecting the load. The proposed topology keeps the switching components along with third harmonics components due to advanced PWM technique within the drive system and achieves filtered DC bus on common mode basis. The LC resonant clamp filter on the motor side decreases the dv/dt of output voltage which further minimizes the adverse effects of CMV due to inverter apart from eliminating the voltage doubling at motor terminal. The reduced CMC minimizes the risk of motor failure when an AFE rectifier is used in ASD. 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