A Smart Transformer-Rectifier Unit for the More Electric Aircraft

Buticchi, Giampaolo; Gerada, Chris; Ko, Young Jong; Liserre, Marco

Abstract

In the framework of the More Electric Aircraft (MEA), an efficient and flexible power distribution system is of paramount importance. Considering the presence of both AC and DC loads at multiple voltage levels, the distribution system of the most modern aircrafts is intrinsically hybrid. In this scenario, the different buses are connected by AC/DC converters. The simplest approach is to use a Transformer-Rectifier Unit (TRU) based on a low-frequency transformer followed by passive rectifiers to perform the AC/DC conversion. This solution, however, is intrinsically uni-directional, introduces current harmonics in the AC side and can have a considerable size. This paper proposes the use of a Smart-TRU, based on a Cascaded H-Bridge topology and a multi-port DC/DC converter, to solve the issues of the traditional TRU, increasing the controllability of the system. Experiments show how the proposed STRU is resilient to faults in the AC side.

Citation

Buticchi, G., Gerada, C., Ko, Y. J., & Liserre, M. (2018, June). A Smart Transformer-Rectifier Unit for the More Electric Aircraft. Presented at 2018 IEEE 27th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE), Cairns, Australia

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: 2018 IEEE 27th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE)
• Start Date: Jun 13, 2018
• End Date: Jun 15, 2018
• Acceptance Date: Mar 8, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Aug 13, 2018
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 19, 2020
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Volume: 2018-June
• Pages: 324-328
• Book Title: Proceedings - 2018 IEEE 27th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE)
• ISBN: 978-1-5386-3706-7
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ISIE.2018.8433784
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4416689
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.ezproxy.nottingham.ac.uk/document/8433784
• Additional Information: © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.