Rockwell Technologies, Inc.

Bruce A Hachey

Gary Leonard Skibinski

Nickolay N Guskov

Dongsheng Zhou

Brian R Buchholz

Walt A Maslowski

A nine-phase AC to DC power converter system may exhibit current unbalance problem among bridges due to two reasons: slight voltage magnitude difference among different sets of three-phase supplies and pre-existing voltage harmonics in the power supply lines. Since the unpredictability of the pre-existing harmonics and manufacturing uncertainty of the nine-phase power supply (it is usually a three to nine phase transformer), all devices in the rectifier bridges are required to carry much higher than necessary current magnitude and have to be designed oversize, as much as 100% up. Here we describe various topologies of harmonic blocking reactors to combat this problem. The described topologies can significantly improve this situation and thus avoid the over-sizing exercise (cost) when such converter system is built. The principle can be easily extended to any multi-phase AC to DC or DC to AC power conversion system of more than nine phases. The principle can be extended to any multi-phase converter system with more than nine phases.

Growing community of inventors

Milwaukee, WI, United States of America

Bruce A Hachey