Power Electronics

a) Power semiconductor devices.

Properties, static and switching characteristics of power semiconductor devices: Diode, Thyristor, Triac, GTO, MOSFET, IGBT. Cooling of of power semiconductors, thermal impedance, thermal model of the cooling system.

b) Fundamentals of power converters and control principles.

Single- and multiphase AC/DC  half and fully controlled converters with R, RL and RLE loads, continuous and discontinuous modes of operation, influence of freewheeling diode, active and reactive power, power factor, effect of source impedance commutation.

c) DC/DC converters, principles of step-down and step-up converters, analysis of buck, boost, buck-boost, half- and full-bridge converters, control of DC/DC converters.

d) Single- and multiphase DC/AC converters.  PWM and other modulation principles, single and multilevel converters.

e) Resonant converters, soft switching techniques (ZVS and ZCS).

f) high power converters without DC link (cycloconverters, matrix converters).

g) Applications of power converters in the field of power systems (passive and active compensators, active power filters).

This course gives students basic knowledge of the following areas of power electronics needed in the master courses in the Electrical Engineering:

• power electronic devices and their static and dynamic characteristics,
• basic converter topologies and and their performance and
• basic converter control principles.

After successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• explain the operation principle of the fundamental power electronics circuits,
• calculate the power flow and thermal losses in power converters,
• develop simulation models of basic power electronic system,
• compare the performance of different power converters,
• select appropriate converter topology for target application,
• use fundamental power converters for power supply and motor drives in low and high power applications.

Lectures, solving of applied problems regarding power electronics, laboratory exercises in small groups (danger of high voltage), practical work includes building and testing of different power converters and report writing.