Novel Active Snubbers for SSCBs to Improve Switch Voltage Utilization Rate

Reza Kheirollahi, Shuyan Zhao, Hua Zhang, Fei Lu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article proposes two novel active snubbers for direct current (dc) solid-state circuit breakers (SSCBs): metal-oxide-varistor with resistor-capacitor-switch (MOV-RCS) and active-MOV with resistor-capacitor-diode (AMOV-RCD). In the snubber branch, either a half- or full-controlled switch can be applicable, leading to four novel topologies. There are two main contributions: 1) MOV is disconnected from the power line during SSCB OFF-state, which enhances reliability as neither voltage nor power appears on MOV and 2) voltage utilization rate $\eta _{v}$ of the main switch is remarkably increased, which improves efficiency and power density, and reduces design cost. Experiments of five prototypes are conducted including four proposed snubbers and a comparison with conventional MOV-RCD snubber. Results show that, for 1.2-kV MOSFETs as the main switch, new snubbers can enhance $\eta _ {v}$ from 37.5% to 60%, achieving 183-A dc current interruption under 720-V dc bus voltage within $2.4~\mu \text{s}$. Meanwhile, the voltage peak is limited to 1.112 kV.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2565-2576
Number of pages12
JournalIEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics
Volume11
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1 2023
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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