Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd.

Masashige Tsuji

Seiji Funaba

Yasuo Noto

Koichi Yahata

Ayumu Morita

Katsunori Kojima

Hiroshi Katayama

Tooru Tanimizu

Hiroaki Igarashi

Yoshio Akaishi

Shuuichi Kikukawa

Takashi Fujimoto

Yuichi Ishikawa

Toru Tanimizu

Takeshi Kato

Keiji Kunii

Satoshi Hiranuma

Yoshiharu Yotsumoto

Shinichiro Hida

In an automotive vehicle inverter control apparatus of the related art, a limp-home mode is provided, but six power sources including transformers are required for respective gate circuits of the respective IGBT drive circuits. Therefore, a reduction in size and a reduction in weight cannot be achieved, and a demand of the improvement of mountability or the improvement of fuel consumption as described above cannot be satisfied. A power semiconductor module and the drive circuit include three unit semiconductor modules and three unit drive circuits corresponding to a three-phase alternating current, and power supply units of the unit drive circuits are provided independently, whereby the limp-home mode is provided and in addition, the number of power supply units may be reduced, so that the reduction in size and the reduction in weight are achieved.

Automotive vehicle inverter control apparatus

Provided is a driver board capable of miniaturizing itself while ensuring insulation voltage resistance performance. In the driver board: a transformeris configured, so as to cross a first insulating region, such that a primary side terminalis connected to a primary side circuitand a secondary side terminalis connected to a secondary side circuit; a power supply control ICis configured, so as to cross a insulating region, such that a primary side terminalis connected to a primary side circuitand a secondary side terminalis connected to a secondary side circuit; and the insulating regionand the insulating regionare formed so as to at least partially face each other via an insulating boardsuch that the primary side circuitand the secondary side circuitdo not face each other via the insulating board and the primary side circuitand the secondary side circuitdo not face each other via the insulating board.

Driver board and power converter

A power converter includes an inverter, a contactor for connecting a battery to the inverter in order to supply DC power from the battery to the inverter and for disconnecting the battery from the inverter in order to stop an operation to supply the DC power from the battery to the inverter, a smoothing capacitor connected in parallel to the battery through the contactor, a discharge circuit that is provided with a discharge resistor and a switching device connected in series to the discharge resistor and is connected in parallel to the smoothing capacitor to discharge electric charge from the smoothing capacitor, a voltage measurement circuit, a voltage-dividing circuit for dividing the voltage across the terminals of the smoothing capacitor to generate a partial voltage to be input to the voltage measurement circuit and a control circuit of the switching device.

Power converter

An electric power converter is provided with a plurality of power-conversion elements; a first control circuit that outputs a first control signal; an electricity storage circuit; a second control circuit that outputs a second control signal when the direct-current power source that supplies electrical power to the first control circuit is not normal; and a drive circuit that outputs drive signals for driving the plurality of power-conversion elements. Each of the power-conversion elements is either a power-conversion element of the upper arm connected to the high-voltage side or a conversion element of the lower arm connected to the low-voltage side. In cases when the voltage of the electricity storage circuit is at a higher predetermined first voltage value, the second control circuit outputs a second control signal so that all the power-conversion elements of the upper arm or the lower arm are turned on and the others are turned off.

Power inverter

A power conversion system according to the present invention includes: an inverter circuit unit that converts a direct current power supplied from a direct current source into an alternating current power, the direct current power being supplied to the inverter circuit through a contactor that conducts and interrupts the direct current; a capacitor that smoothes the direct current power; a discharge circuit unit that is connected to the capacitor in parallel, and that includes a discharge resistor for discharging a charge stored in the capacitor and a switching element for the discharge resistor, being connected in series to the discharge resistor; a voltage detection circuit unit that detects voltage between both terminals of the capacitor; a first discharge control circuit that includes a first microcomputer, and that outputs a control signal to control switching of the switching element for discharging; and a second discharge control circuit that outputs an interruption signal to interrupt the switching element for the discharge resistor.

Electric power conversion system

A discharge circuit for a DC power supply smoothing capacitor that is used in a power conversion device that supplies DC power via a switch to the DC power supply smoothing capacitor and an inverter, includes; a resistor that discharges charge in the capacitor; a switch connected in series with the resistor, that either passes or intercepts discharge current flowing from the capacitor to the resistor; a measurement circuit that measures a terminal voltage of the capacitor; and a control circuit that controls continuity and discontinuity of the switch; wherein the control circuit, after having made the switch continuous and starting discharge of the capacitor by the resistor, if a terminal voltage of the capacitor as measured by the measurement circuit exceeds a voltage decrease characteristic set in advance, makes the switch discontinuous and stops discharge by the resistor.

Discharge circuit for smoothing capacitor of DC power supply

A power conversion device includes an inverter circuit converting DC power into AC power and including switching devices constituting upper and lower arms, a control circuit controlling the switching devices, a drive circuit driving the switching devices by a signal from the control circuit, and an insulated power supply circuit supplying power to the drive circuit. The control circuit controls a power supply voltage to be outputted from the power supply circuit to the drive circuit. The drive circuit drives the switching devices and based on a carrier frequency and the power supply voltage. The power supply circuit includes a feedback output circuit through which the voltage outputted to the drive circuit is outputted to a power supply control IC. The feedback output circuit includes a dummy load circuit which controls the voltage to be outputted to the power supply control IC based on a change of the carrier frequency.

Power supply circuit and power conversion device

Connection portions (UP throughWP) to which upper arm control terminals (UU throughUW) are connected are disposed at a first edge portion of a drive circuit board (). And connection portions (UN throughWN to which lower arm control terminals (LU throughLW) are connected are disposed at a second edge portion of the drive circuit board (). Upper arm implementation regions (UP throughWP), lower arm implementation regions (UN throughWN), and a low voltage pattern region () in which photo-couplers (U throughW) are implemented are formed in the board region between these board edge portions. And signal wiring (U) that transmits a control signal from a photo-coupler (U) to an implementation region (UN) is formed in a conductor layer that is a lower layer than the conductor layer in the lower arm implementation region in which the lower arm driver circuit is implemented.

Power conversion device

A power inverter comprises a power module connected at least to a rotating electric machine, a gate drive circuit board which supplies switching power to the power module, and a rotating electric machine control circuit board which supplies a signal for controlling the waveform of the switching power to the gate drive circuit board. A noise reduction board is formed on a board different from the rotating electric machine control circuit board. The configuration of the noise reduction board is such that various signals for forming a signal for controlling the waveform of the switching power by means of the rotating electric machine control circuit board are inputted through the noise reduction board to the rotating electric machine control circuit board.

A vacuum switch is composed by installing a vacuum circuit-breaker and a disconnector in different grounded vacuum vessels, respectively, and a vacuum-measurement device is attached to each grounded vacuum vessel. The above vacuum vessel communicates with one of the grounded vacuum vessels, and the degree of vacuum in the vacuum vessel can be directly measured and monitored.

Vacuum switch including vacuum-measurement devices, switchgear using the vacuum switch, and operation method thereof

A vacuum exhaust element of a vacuum switch has an ordinary withstand voltage because the vacuum vessel and power source element are grounded, therefore not requiring the high voltage to be taken into consideration. This way, the vacuum exhaust element is miniaturized and it is safe for a worker to touch the vacuum vessel and the vacuum exhaust element when performing maintenance and/or inspection.

Growing community of inventors

Hitachinaka, Japan

Masashige Tsuji