International Renewable Energy Congress November 5-7, 2010 – Sousse, Tunisia ID24/ ©IREC2010 417 THREE-PHASE PFC RECTIFIER USING A SWITCHING CURRENT INJECTION DEVICE FOR VEHICLE POWER TRAIN APPLICATIONS A. TOUMI 1 , M. GHARIANI 2 , I. BEN SALAH 3 , and R. NEJI 4 1 Laboratoire d’Electronique et des Technologies de l’Information e-mail: amine_toumi_tn@yahoo.fr 2 Association d’Ingénierie ElectroMécanique e-mail: moez.ghariani@isecs.rnu.tn 3 Association d’Ingénierie ElectroMécanique e-mail: ibrahim.bensalah@isecs.rnu.tn 4 Laboratoire d’Electronique et des Technologies de l’Information e-mail: rafik.neji@enis.rnu.tn Abstract -This paper presents PFC (Power Factor Correction) rectifier using harmonic injection with a switching current in the injection device. In this method, a periodic current is injected in the control circuit to vary the duty cycle of the rectifier switch within a line cycle so that the third-order harmonic of the input current is reduced to meet the total harmonic distortion (THD) requirement. The third harmonic current is generated by a tuned LC circuit and three switches are used for the injection device. As a result, the circuit gives a total input harmonic current distortion of 4.2% at a load of approximately 7.7kW. Simulations results (Matlab–Simulink) are used to highlight the effectiveness of this design method. Keywords - Boost converter, discontinuous conduction mode, harmonic injection, power factor correction, three-phase rectifier 1. Introduction In most of power electronics applications, diode rectifiers are commonly used. The rectifiers are nonlinear devices; therefore they generate harmonic currents into the AC power source and cause various problems. The nonlinear operation of the diode rectifiers causes highly distorted input current. The non-sinusoidal shape of the input current drawn by the rectifiers causes a number of problems in the sensitive electronic equipment and in the power distribution network. The distorted input current flowing through the system produces distorted voltages at the input of the common coupling. Thus, the increased harmonic currents result in increasing volt-ampere ratings of the utility equipment, such as generators, transmission lines and transformers. In addition to the inefficient use of electric energy, the discontinuous conduction of the bridge rectifier results in a high total harmonic distortion (THD) in the input lines and can lead to malfunctioning of the sensitive electronic equipment. Several methods of power factor correction were proposed [1,5]. Amongst the three-phase ac-to-dc rectifiers, boost type topologies are frequently used because of continuous input currents and high output voltages. Basically, two topologies are most popular: a six-switch full-bridge boost rectifier and a single switch boost rectifier. The first one uses six switches to achieve sinusoidal input current control and to share the output power, resulting in features, which include continuous input current, excellent power factor and low switch current rating. However, this circuit is very complicated in power stage and control, making it too expensive for medium power level (5-10kW) applications. The second one uses six diodes and one switch to control input currents and output power as depicted in figure. 1[3]. Since these rectifiers have a single switch and perform input current wave-shaping naturally, without a need for a complex control circuitry, they are very suitable for the low cost power three-phase ac-dc applications. In addition, they can achieve extremely high efficiencies because the reverse-recovery-related losses of the boost diode are eliminated. In this paper, we present a PFC rectifier using harmonic injection with a switching current in the injection device. It is a cost effective and economical solution to mitigate harmonics generated by power electronic equipment. It consists on the use of three single-phase power factor corrected rectifiers in cascade. The main advantage of this configuration is that a well-known single-phase power factor