Failure analysis and reliability evaluation of modulation techniques for neutral point clamped inverters—A usage model approach

Abstract

Up to now, many modulation techniques have been proposed for neutral point clamped (NPC) inverters. In this paper, for the first time, a general methodology is applied to calculate and compare the failure analysis and reliability of NPC inverter with most commonly used control strategies. Also, the mean time to failure (MTTF) of NPC inverter is derived for different control strategies. It is demonstrated that the key feature of control strategies in determining the reliability of inverter is their loss distribution among the switches. The failure rate of components that is relevant to this study and junction temperature calculation is developed, then conduction losses and switching losses of switches for different control strategies are calculated. Finally, the most reliable control strategy is identified. Experimental results obtained have promptly justified the theoretical analysis and outlined procedure.

Design and analysis of a switched‐capacitor DC‐DC converter with variable conversion ratio

“…Capacitors are one the most fragile components in power electronic systems. [31][32][33] Therefore, the number of charging capacitors is another important point that should be compared for different topologies. To achieve the same voltage ratio, the proposed topologies in this paper and in Pan et al 26 have the same number of charging capacitors.…”

A Study of Inverter Drives and Its Ride Through Capabilities in Industrial Applications

“…With the fault detection technique, the diagnostic methods been simplified and the versatility of the drives system. Masoud Farhadi et al [4] discusses about the mean time failure of the inverter drives used in industry. The components failure rate, switching loses employed in different control strategies in wind up the reliability in loss through switches.…”

“…So, by going for direct torque control schemes with SV PWM technique, the fault diagnosis transistor also gets reduced and to narrow down the faulted transistor rule base is being implemented. In this paper [4], author described the general methodology for failure analysis and evaluation of the inverters configuration, their switching losses, rate of failure, temperature and their conduction losses and determined reliable control strategies. A three-phase three-level NPC inverter have been built for verifying the theoretical analysis and the experimental setup has been made and compared with simulation and results and author found out both simulation and experimental results are same.…”

Reliability-Oriented Selection for Grid-Connected Converters: A Low Voltage Direct Current Microgrid Case Study

“…The modulation strategies of AC-DC converters can generally be classified into two categories: pulse width modulation (PWM) and space vector modulation (SVM) [15]. Some studies are devoted to the influence of different modulation strategies on the converters' losses and reliability [16]- [20].…”

“…Ref [19] analyzes the reliability and harmonic performance of an impedance-source inverter with various modulation strategies, but the effect of modulation strategies on the reliability of dclink capacitors in the inverter is not discussed. Farhadi, et al compare the losses and reliability of the NPC converter with SPWM, THIPWM and space vector PWM (SVPWM) [15]. And the Military Handbook for Reliability Prediction of Electronic Equipment MIL-HDBK-217 F is used to calculate the capacitors' failure rates.…”