Research on uninterruptable power supply technology for auxiliary winding of electric locomotive while passing the neutral section

Purpose–Auxiliary power system is an indispensable part of the train;the auxiliary systems of both electric locomotives and EMUs mainly are powered by one of the two ways,which are either from auxiliary windings of traction transformers or from DC-link voltage of traction converters.Powered by DC-link voltage of traction converters,the auxiliary systems were maintained of uninterruptable power supply with energy from electric braking.Meanwhile,powered by traction transformers,the auxiliary systems were always out of power while passing the neutral section of power supply grid and control system is powered by battery at this time.Design/methodology/approach–Uninterrupted power supply of auxiliary power system powered by auxiliary winding of traction transformer was studied.Failure reasons why previous solutions cannot be realized are analyzed.An uninterruptable power supply scheme for the auxiliary systems powered by auxiliary windings of traction transformers is proposed in this paper.The validity of the proposed scheme is verified by simulation and experimental results and on-site operation of an upgraded HXD3C type locomotive.This scheme is attractive for upgrading practical locomotives with the auxiliary systems powered by auxiliary windings of traction transformers.Findings–This scheme regenerates braking power supplied to auxiliary windings of traction transformers while a locomotive runs in the neutral section of the power supply grid.Control objectives of uninterrupted power supply technology are proposed,which are no overvoltage,no overcurrent and uninterrupted power supply.Originality/value–The control strategies of the scheme ensure both overvoltage free and inrush current free when a locomotive enters or leaves the neutral section.Furthermore,this scheme is cost low by employing updated control strategy of software and add both the two current sensors and two connection wires of hardware.

SIMULATING METHOD OF MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT OF POWER TRANSFORMERS USING CONCEPT OF INSTANTANEOUS POWER

In this paper,a new simulating method is presented,using only the normal magnetizing curve (B-H) of the transformer core material,its geometric dimensions,the no-load power loss data and the concept of instantaneous power. At the end of this paper the simulating calculation using EMTP has been also performed for the same transformer. The comparison shows that the two sets of results are very close to each other,and proves the correctness of the new method. The new method presented in this paper is helpful to verify the correctness of the power transformer design,analyze the behavior of the transformer protection under switching and study the new transformer protection principles.

An Active Inrush Current Limiter Based on SCR Phase Shift Control for EV Charging Systems

This article gives an overview of the main passive solutions and active techniques, based on AC switches to limit inrush currents in medium power AC-DC converters （up to 3.7 kW） for electric vehicle charging systems. In particular, a strategy, based on SCR （silicon controlled rectifier） phase, shift control in a mixed rectifier bridge with diodes and thyristors, is proposed. The challenge is to help designers optimize the triggering delay of SCRs to both limit the peak value of inrush current spikes and optimize the charge duration of the DC-link capacitor. A mathematical model （Mathcad engineering tool） has been defined to point out, the interest of a variable triggering delay to control SCRs to meet the expectations described previously. Experimental measurements using an industrial evaluation board of the AC-DC converter demonstrate the robustness of the method.

Analysis and suppression method of transformer no-load closing excitation inrush current

The primary winding of the transformer will generate large inrush current due to the saturation of iron core when an unloaded transformer is switched-on. The inrush current not only causes mechanical interaction force due to which the windings are damaged, but also induces the differential protection relays to operate incorrectly. In this paper, the mathematical model of unloaded single phase transformer in switch-on is analyzed; the computation formulas of the inrush current and its interruption angle are presented. The experiment investigation of single phase transformers with different capacities shows that the inrush current measurement result is consistent with theoretical analysis. The inrush current waveform is typically a steeple top waveform with high order harmonics and damping in one direction. In the same condition, large inrush current amplitude will be induced with smaller switching angle, larger residual flux and smaller saturation flux.

APPLICATION OF NEURAL NETWORK FOR THE TRANSFORMER PROTECTIVE RELAYS

A neural network method used to identify the different operating states of transformers has been proposed and established.It is superior to the traditional transformer protective principles and can correctly identify,within half cycle from the fault inception,the internal faults,magnetizing inrush current state,external faults and switching on the internal faults of a no load transformer.In addition,this method has broad availability and high fault tolerant ability.A lot of simulations have demonstrated its superiority.

A Wavelet-Based Technique for Distribution Networks

This paper presents a wavelet-based technique for detection and classification of normal and abnormal conditions that occur on power distribution lines. The proposed technique depends on a sensitive fault detection parameter （denoted DET） calculated from the wavelet multi-resolution decomposition of the three phase currents only. This parameter is fast and sensitive to any small changes in the current signal since it uses the square of the first and second details of the decomposed signals. The simulation results of this study clearly show that the proposed technique can be successfully used to detect and classify not only low-current faults that could not be detected by conventional overcurrent relays but also normal transients like load switching and inrush currents.

Effect of Switching Devices on Power Quality and Transient Voltage Suppression Using Capacitor Bank Model

The main purpose of the electrical power system is to transport and distribute energy generated by the central power plants in a safe and reliable manner to the customer premises. Most of the electrical equipment is exposed within the open which suggests they can be vulnerable to lightning strikes, road dwindling, windstorms, and a few engineering activities with the potential of causing different degrees of damage to the electrical equipment. One of the ways to guard the equipment is to deploy switching devices. However, the operations of most of these switching devices produce oscillatory transient in the electrical transmission and distribution systems which result in voltage, current, and frequency fluctuations in the load. This paper investigates the effect of switching devices on power quality and proposes a positive sequence voltage power transient suppression technique that can spontaneously improve the distorted voltage at the instant of capacitor switching using the capacitor line model as a case study. MATLAB/Simulink software was utilized for the analysis on an electrical network model with bus voltages of 69 kV/12.47 kV and 480 V. The results showed that, during switching operations, the positive sequence voltage power detector block produces ripple-free accurate results.

Solid-state Circuit Breaker Based on Cascaded Normally-on SiC JFETs for Medium-voltage DC Distribution Networks

Solid-state circuit breakers(SSCBs)are critical components in the protection of medium-voltage DC distribution networks to facilitate arc-free,fast and reliable isolation of DC faults.However,limited by the capacity of a single semiconductor device,using semi-conductor-based SSCBs at high voltage is challenging.This study presents the details of a 1.5 kV,63 A medi-um-voltage SSCB,composed primarily of a solid-state switch based on three cascaded normally-on silicon car-bide(SiC)junction field-effect transistors(JFETs)and a low-cost programmable gate drive circuit.Dynamic and static voltage sharing among the cascaded SiC JFETs of the SSCB during fault isolation is realized using the pro-posed gate drive circuit.The selection conditions for the key parameters of the SSCB gate driver are also analyzed.Additionally,an improved pulse-width modulation cur-rent-limiting protection solution is proposed to identify the permanent overcurrent and transient inrush current associated with capacitive load startup in a DC distribu-tion network.Using the developed SSCB prototype and the fault test system,experimental results are obtained to validate the fault response performance of the SSCB.Index Terms—Solid-state circuit breaker,DC distribu-tion network,SiC JFET,voltage balancing,inrush current.

A double-stage start-up structure to limit the inrush current used in current mode charge pump

A double-stage start-up structure to limit the inrush current used in current-mode charge pump with wide input range,fixed output and multimode operation is presented in this paper.As a widely utilized power source implement,a Li-battery is always used as the power supply for chips.Due to the internal resistance,a potential drop will be generated at the input terminal of the chip with an input current.A false shut down with a low supply voltage will happen if the input current is too large,leading to the degradation of the Li-battery＇s service life.To solve this problem,the inrush current is limited by introducing a new start-up state.All of the circuits have been implemented with the NUVOTON 0.6 μm CMOS process.The measurement results show that the inrush current can be limited below 1 A within all input supply ranges,and the power efficiency is higher than the conventional structure.

Single-stage Five-level Common Ground Transformerless Inverter with Extendable Structure for Centralized Photovoltaics

The paper presents a five-level common ground type(5L-CGT),transformer-less inverter topology with double voltage boosting.The proposed inverter uses eight switches and two capacitors,charged at input voltage level.The inverter in its basic form acts as a string inverter for low-power PV applications.However,it can be extended to work as a scalable multi-level inverter with higher power handling capability to act as a centralized inverter.The working of the inverter with the sizing of the components is presented with mathematical analysis.The efficiency of the proposed PV inverter is found using thermal losses associated with switches using PLECS software.A prototype of 1 kW has been designed,and experimentation has been carried out.Various loads with a lagging power factor up to 0.6 have been tested with the inverter to establish the usability of the proposed inverter in a worst-case emulated homeuse scenario.The total harmonic distortion(THD)at the output has been recorded using a power quality analyzer with voltage and current THD values of 4.5%and 2.5%,respectively,which lies within the limits of IEEE 519 standards.The highest power conversion efficiency of the inverter has been recorded to be 96.20%.

Transient performance comparison of grid-forming converters with different FRT control strategies

Grid-forming converters(GFMs)are faced with the threat of transient inrush current and synchronization instability issues when subjected to grid faults.Instead of disconnecting from the grid unintentionally,GFMs are required to have fault ride through(FRT)capability to maintain safe and stable operation in grid-connected mode during grid fault periods.In recent studies,different FRT control strategies with distinguishing features and that are feasible for different operation conditions have been proposed for GFMs.To determine their application scope,an intuitive comparison of the transient performance of different FRT control strategies is presented in this paper.First,three typical FRT control strategies(virtual impedance,current limiters,and mode-switching control)are introduced and transient mathematical models are established.A detailed comparison analysis on transient inrush current and transient synchronization stability is then presented.The results will be useful for guiding the selection and design of FRT control strategies.Finally,simulation results based on PSCAD/EMTDC are considered to verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis.

Hybrid Phase-controlled Circuit Breaker with Switch System Used in the Railway Auto-passing Neutral Section with an Electric Load

Constrained by the characteristics of neutral sec- tions (NS) and traditional vacuum circuit breakers, previous phase-controlled strategies have a long power supply dead time, it is difficult to realize a continuous power supply to the auxiliary power system. The dead time can be reduced by using the ground automatic convert method, hybrid phase-controlled technologies can in theory completely eliminate inrush currents. In this paper, a new system based on hybrid phase-controlled switches is described and termed ground-switching passing neutral section system (GPNSS). The principle for restraining inrush currents is analyzed and strategies are carried out with the dead time limited to 5 ms. The characteristics of the vacuum circuit breaker are illustrated and the closing time window of the transformer is quantified. Through the use of mechanical switches and power electronics, the auxiliary power system may be continuously pow- ered. The prototype system is implemented and experimentally tested in the laboratory.

IEC61850 standard-based harmonic blocking scheme for power transformers

Transformer Differential and overcurrent schemes are traditionally used as main and backup protection respectively. The differential protection relay (SEL487E) has dedicated harmonic restraint function which blocks the relay tripping during the transformer magnetizing inrush conditions. However, the backup overcurrent relay (SEL751A) applied to the transformer protection does not have harmonic restraint element and trip the overcurrent relay during the inrush conditions. Therefore, major contribution of this research work is the developed harmonic blocking scheme for transformer which uses element (87HB) of the transformer differential relay (SEL487E) to send an IEC61850 GOOSE-based harmonic blocking signal to the backup overcurrent relay (SEL751A) to inhibit from tripping during the transformer magnetizing inrush current conditions. The simulation results proved that IEC61850 standard-based protection scheme is faster than the hardwired signals. Therefore, the speed and reliability of the transformer scheme are improved using the IEC61850 standard-based GOOSE applications.

A fast novel soft-start circuit for peak current-mode DC-DC buck converters

A fully integrated soft-start circuit for DC-DC buck converters is presented. The proposed high speed soft-start circuit is made of two sections： an overshoot suppression circuit and an inrush current suppression circuit. The overshoot suppression circuit is presented to control the input of the error amplifier to make output voltage limit increase in steps without using an external capacitor. A variable clock signal is adopted in the inrush current suppression circuit to increase the duty cycle of the system and suppress the inrush current. The DC-DC converter with the proposed soft-start circuit has been fabricated with a standard 0.13 um CMOS process. Experimental results show that the proposed high speed soft-start circuit has achieved less than 50 us start-up time. The inductor current and the output voltage increase smoothly over the whole load range.

Waveform feature monitoring scheme for transformer differential protection

We propose a new scheme for transformer differential protection. This scheme uses different characteristics of the differential currents waveforms (DCWs) under internal fault and magnetizing inrush current conditions. The scheme is based on choosing an appropriate feature of the waveform and monitoring it during the post-disturbance instants. For this purpose, the signal feature is quantified by a discrimination function (DF). Discrimination between internal faults and magnetizing inrush currents is carried out by tracking the signs of three decision-making functions (DMFs) computed from the DFs for three phases. We also present a new algorithm related to the general scheme. The algorithm is based on monitoring the second derivative sign of DCW. The results show that all types of internal faults, even those accompanied by the magnetizing inrush, can be correctly identified from the inrush conditions about half a cycle after the occurrence of a disturbance. Another advantage of the proposed method is that the fault detection algorithm does not depend on the selection of thresholds. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm does not require burdensome computations.