12-Pulse Auto-Transformer Rectifier with Harmonic

Current Injection for Non-Grid-Connected

Wind Power Applications
Ming Wang, Fanghua Zhang
College of Automation Engineering
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Nanjing, 210016, Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract—Harmonics in input currents caused by three-phase growing pulses, but the reduction is getting smaller and the
rectifiers are harmful to wind turbines generators, and multi- main transformer more complex.
pulse rectifiers can be used to reduce the harmonics. Multi-pulse
diode rectifiers are of the property that the total harmonic A method that 12-pulse auto-transformer rectifier with
distortion (THD) of input currents and the ripples of output harmonic current injection, which could shape the input
voltage are getting lower with growing pulses, while more currents near sinusoidal, is researched in this paper. It is
complex connected transformer and more diode bridges are realized by connecting a harmonic injection circuit to the
needed. A method that connecting a resistor or power factor added windings of the two IPTs. The THD of the input
correction (PFC) converter to the added windings of inter-phase currents is only 1.06% in theory by harmonic current injection,
transformers (IPTs) of 12-pulse rectifier, injects a current to the and the voltampere (VA) rating of the injection circuit is only
rectifier, so as to reduce the THD of input currents. Theoretical 2.33% of the output power.
investigation of the method is presented, and the results of
simulation and experiment verify the analysis. Theoretical investigation is presented detailedly in Section
II. Both a resistor and a PFC converter can be used as the
Keywords—Non-Grid-Connected Wind Power; Multi-Pulse injection circuit according to analysis. Simulation and
Rectifier; Auto-Transfomer Rectifier; Inter-Phase Transformer; experiment of the two schemes are illustrated in Section III
Harmonic Current Injection;Power Factor Correction ( PFC) and IV respectively. Section V concludes the paper.

I. INTRODUCTION II. THE REQUIRED HARMONIC CURRENT

As an important number of renewable energy, wind power
A. Auto-Transfomer
is getting more and more extensive application. Since it
doesn’t need to meet the rigorous requirement of a stable Fig. 1 shows the configuration of a 12-pulse auto-
frequency and stable phase by the grid [1], so non-grid- transformer rectifier [8], which consists of an auto-transformer,
connected wind power is less costly, easier for large-scale two three-phase diode bridges, and two IPTs ensuring the
utilization and of higher efficiency. parallel operation of the two bridges. The output current Id is
considered as a directly current due to Ld.
A non-grid-connected wind power system includes wind
turbines, generators, rectifiers and terminal users. Since the
nonlinear characteristic of rectifiers, the input currents are rich
in harmonics [2]-[3], which would do damage to wind turbines
generators, when a three-phase rectifier is used. So it’s very
important to limit the harmonics of the input currents.
Multi-pulse diode rectifiers could mitigate the harmonics
of input currents and the ripple of the output voltage
effectively. Advantages of this technique can be concluded
that: it’s of high reliability because of the diode bridges, which
do not need control electronics; it performs well within a wide Fig. 1 12-Pulse auto-transformer rectifier
input line frequency range; the size and weight of the device
will be reduced greatly with auto-connected of the main
transformer if isolation is not required.
12, 18, 24 and 30-pulse rectifier are popular in practice at
present[4-7], and the THD of the input currents of the
corresponding rectifier are 15.2%, 10.1%, 7.5%, 6.1%
theoretically. It’s obviously that the THD is getting lower with

978-1-4244-4702-2/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

 x x x
Va '' Va Va ' va ' va '
vb ' p vb ' p'
x x vc ' vc '
Vca Vab Vd 1 Vd 2
x n va " L p1 n va " Lp 2
x x Vb ''
Vc ' Vbc x
vb" vb"
x
Vb q q'
Vc x vc " vc "
x

Vc '' Vb '
(a) (b)
Fig. 2 Voltage vector diagram of the auto-transformer
Fig. 3 Equivalent circuit of dc-side output. (a) Upper side diodes of the two
The voltage vectors of the transformer are presented in Fig. bridges. (b) Lower side diodes of the two bridges.
2, and the origin of each vector is the neutral point n of the
three-phase source. Np and Ns are the turns of the long windings vm v pq  v p ' q ' , (6)
and the short windings of the transformer respectively, and they where vm resembles a triangular wave, and its amplitude is
should fulfill Vmp 0.340Vs , (7)
N p : Ns 2( 3  1) : (2  3) (1) and the voltages of the midpoint of the two IPTs with respect
to the neutral point n are as follows:
in order to achieve 30 degrees phase shift between the two sets ­ V pn  Vqn
of three-phase output voltage of the transformer. °°Vd 1
2 , (8)
The relationship between the input current of phase a and ®
°V V p ' n  Vq ' n
the output currents of the transformer can be obtained °̄ d 2
according to magnetomotive force (MMF) balance and KCL as 2
follow and finally, the output voltage of the rectifier is
Vd Vd 1  Vd 2 2.42Vs . (9)
Ns The waveforms of the voltages are shown in Fig. 4.
ia ia '  ia "  (ib "  ib '  ic '  ic " ) . (2)
Ns  N p 300
Vd
The decrement of the kVA rating of the employed auto-
200
transformer is 82% approximately, compared with the V pn Vqn
conventional isolated transformer. Therefore, the auto-
100
transformer makes the rectifier physically smaller and less Vp 'q '
costly. Vm
Zt

B. The Voltage Analysis V pq

Vq ' n 100 Vp 'n
Assuming that the input voltage of phase a is
va (t ) 2Vs sin Zt , (3) 200

Fig. 4 Voltage waveforms of the rectifier

where Vs is the line-to-neutral voltage of phase a, and va’, one
of the output voltage of the transformer can be expressed by:
C. The Required Harmonic Current Analysis
2Vs The basic idea of this section is that a harmonic current ix,
va ' (t ) sin(Zt  15o ) . (4)
cos15o generated by a circuit connected to the added windings of the
IPTs [Fig. 5], results in the inductive current on the primary
The three-phase source and the auto-transformer can be windings, and shapes the phase currents of the three-phase
simplified to two sets of three-phase sources, which are (va’ǃ source sinusoidal. At last, we can solve the harmonic current.
vb’ǃ vc’) and (va”ǃ vb”ǃ vc”) respectively, and each bridge
can be simplified to two sets of three-phase half-bridge, as
shown in Fig. 3.
The output voltages of the four three-phase half-bridges
are Vpn, Vqn, Vp’n, and Vq’n. Thus, vpq, vp’q’, can be expressed by:
­°v pq v pn  vqn
® , (5)
°̄v p ' q ' v p ' n  vq ' n
then,
 Id Ns
ia  ( SWa '  SWa "  ( SWb '  SWc '  SWc "  SWb " ))
2 Ns  N p
I d1 I d1 ix ,
Ns
p ix p' n( SWa '  SWa "  ( SWb '  SWc '  SWb "  SWc " ))
Ns  N p
Id Id (14)
Nm Nx Nx Nm
as shown in Fig. 7.
q q' Fig. 8 shows the waveform of vm, , and h is the amplitude
Id 2 of vm. It seems that the waveform of ix and vm are similar, so
Id 2
we attempt to inject a harmonic current of the same waveform
as vm. Fig. 9 shows that the THD of ia is a function of hx,
Fig.5 General configuration of harmonic injection
which is the amplitude of ix, and the minimum THD is
ix

3 2 1 0 1 2 3
Zt

Fig. 6 Waveform of SWa’ and va’

Fig.7 The required harmonic current
The switching function [9] (SW) is introduced to simplify
the analysis. The value of SW equals 1 when the upper diode vm
of the bridge arm conducts, -1 when the lower one conducts,
and 0 when neither conducts, e.g., SWa’, the switching function
of phase a’[Fig. 6]. As a result, the input currents of the h
bridges can be expressed by switching function and the output
Zt
currents of the bridges:
ªia ' º ª SWa ' º ªia " º ª SWa " º
« » « » « » « »
«ib ' » « SWb ' » I d 1 , «ib " » « SWb " » I d 2 . (10)
«¬ic ' »¼ «¬ SWc ' »¼ «¬ic " »¼ «¬ SWc " »¼

Assuming that Fig.8 Waveform of vm

n N x Nm , (11)
measured at hx= Id/2n. Fig. 10(b) gives the waveform of ia with
where Nm and Nx are respectively the turns of the primary and the minimal THD, which is only 1.06%, and 10(a) illustrates
secondary winding of each IPT. Then, we can get the the one without harmonic current injection, while the THD is
relationship among the primary currents Id1 and Id2, the 15.2%.
secondary current ix, and the output current Id in according to
KCL and MMF balance: The phase currents of the three-phase source will be
­ Id sinusoidal while ix is of the waveform as shown in Fig. 7, but
°° I d 1  n ix it’s difficult to realize. When ix is of the same waveform as vm,
2 . (12) except that the amplitude of ix is Id/2n, the THD of the input
®
°I Id currents can also be very low, compared with that without
 nix
°̄ d 2 2 harmonic current injection.
Assuming that the input current of the three-phase source
becomes sinusoidal since the injection of ix, i.e., there’s just
fundamental component remaining. Then, substituting (10)
and (12) into (2) yields
Id Ns
ia ( SWa '  SWa "  ( SWb '  SWc '  SWc "  SWb " )) 
2 Ns  N p
,
Ns hx
nix ( SWa '  SWa "  ( SWb '  SWc '  SWb "  SWc " ))
Ns  N p I d 2n

(13) Fig. 9 THD in dependence on hx

where ia is sinusoidal. So ix can be solved:
 ia III. SIMULATION RESULTS
All of the two schemes, which are employing a resistor and
a PFC converter respectively, are simulated on the SABER,
compared with no harmonic current injection, in order to verify
Zt the concept. A 115V/400Hz three-phase source and 1.5kW
output power are considered for the simulations.

A. Without Current Injection

The topology shown in Fig. 1 is simulated. Np and Ns of
the autotransformer are 142 and 26 separately, and the value
(a) of each IPT is 90mH. The result of the input current is shown
in Fig.11, and it’s measured that the THD is 15.2%.
ia
B. Employing a Resistor
In order to minimize the effect of leakage inductance, the

Zt

(b)
Fig.10 Waveforms of input current. (a) ia without ix injection
(b) ia with ix injection Fig. 11 Simulation of ia without ix injection

secondary winding is of the same turns as the primary for each

D. Harmonic Current Injection Circuit
IPT, i.e., n=1. Vd is 278V by (9), and so Id is 5.4A according
Since both ix and vx are proportional to vm according to to Vd and Po. As a result, Re is 14ȍ by (17). Fig. 12 shows the
analysis, so connecting a resistor or a converter of resistive results of the simulation. Fig. 12(a) illustrates the voltage and
input impedance to the secondary of the two IPTs, as shown in the current of Re, and Fig. 12(b) shows the waveform of ia. It’s
Fig. 5, can get the required ix, and so we can equal the obvious that ia is nearly sinusoidal, and THD is just 0.57%,
harmonic current injection circuit to a resistor Re. which verifies the theoretical analysis.
The amplitude of vx can be expressed by:
Vxp nVmp 0.340nVs 0.140nVd . (15)
To ensure the THD minimal, the amplitude of ix should be
I xp I d 2n . (16)
Therefore, the value of Re is
Vxp 0.140nVd Vd
Re 0.280n 2 . (17)
I xp I d 2n Id 
The VA rating of the harmonic injection circuit is (a)

VA Vxrms I xrms 0.577 2 Vxp I xp 0.0233Vd I d , (18)

which is just 2.33% of the output power(Po).
It will be easy to realize, when a resistor is employed.
However, since Re is a function of Ixp, which is proportional to
Id, so it has to regulate the value of Re with different Id; and
furthermore, the power of 2.33%Po is wasted at all, which will
decrease the efficiency.
The other feasible way is to employ a PFC[10-13] converter. (b)
First it ensures the resistive input impedance, i.e., Re; what’s
more, Id can be sensed to control the value of Re; and finally, Fig. 12 Simulation results with a resistor employed. (a)Waveforms of vx
the output of the PFC converter can be connected in parallel and ix. (b) Waveform of ia.
with the output of the rectifier, so as not to affect the
efficiency.
C. Employing a PFC Converter
The parameters are the same as above. The results are
shown in Fig. 13. It should be noted that there is switching
ripple on ix, which increases the harmonics of ia finally, and
it’s measured that the THD is 4.7%.

(b)
Fig. 15 Experiment results with a resistor employed. (a)Waveforms of vx
and ix. (b) Waveform of ia.

V. CONCLUSION
 To reduce the damage caused by the harmonics to the wind
(a) turbines generators, a 12-pulse auto-transformer rectifier with
harmonic current injection is researched in this paper. Both the
two schemes, connecting a resistor and a PFC converter to the
added windings of the two IPTs, are verified by simulation, and
the first one is also verified by experiment. The results show
that the two schemes shape the input current nearly sinusoidal.
And the VA rating of the harmonic current injection circuit is
only 2.33%Po, so it’s suitable for high power applications.

ACKOWLEDGMENT
(b)
This work was funded by the National Basic Research
Fig. 13 Simulation results with a PFC converter employed. (a)Waveforms
of vx and ix. (b) Waveform of ia. Program of China in contract number-2007CB210303.

IV. EXPERIMENT RESULTS REFERENCES

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