Development and Validation of a Smart Architecture for Thyristor Valves

Sala, Giacomo; De Bonis, Gianluca; Costabeber, Alessandro; Tani, Angelo; Johnson, Christopher Mark; Clare, Jon C.

Abstract

A high voltage thyristor converter is realized by many valve sections, whose volume is approximately occupied for only the 10% by thyristors and for the 10% by the relevant gate drivers. The remaining 80% is taken by passive auxiliary circuits, needed to protect thyristors during turn-on and turn-off commutations. This work represents a preliminary validation of an innovative architecture that aims to reduce the auxiliary circuit cost, volume, and weight of the overall valve, through the investigation of active, instead of passive solutions. The work starts from investigation of the phenomena behind the valve transient behaviors and proceeds with simulations and experimental tests, using a reduced scale circuit prototype. The match between the obtained results validates the investigated active configurations, confirming that the proposed solution can be used for improving thyristor valves.

Citation

Sala, G., De Bonis, G., Costabeber, A., Tani, A., Johnson, C. M., & Clare, J. C. (2023). Development and Validation of a Smart Architecture for Thyristor Valves. IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 11(4), 4068-4076. https://doi.org/10.1109/JESTPE.2023.3262344

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 20, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Mar 27, 2023
• Publication Date: Aug 15, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 4, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 4, 2023
• Journal: IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics
• Print ISSN: 2168-6777
• Electronic ISSN: 2168-6785
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 4068-4076
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/JESTPE.2023.3262344
• Keywords: Thyristors , Valves , Damping , Power electronics , Integrated circuit modeling , Capacitance , Active circuits, HVDC transmission , AC-DC power conversion , LCC converters , power semiconductor switches , thyristor valves
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/19009927
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10082878