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A Controlled Current AC-AC Converter for

Circuit Breaker Testing


Suwat Kitcharoenwat*, Mongkol Konghirun**, Senior Member, IEEE, and Anawach Sangswang**,
Member, IEEE
* Department of Computer Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand
** Department of Electrical Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand
Abstract--This paper presents an application of singlephase ac-ac converter with ac output current controls
according to requirements of circuit-breaker (CB) testing
standard (IEC 60898). Traditionally, the current sources for
CB tests are simply designed to use the motor driven tap
changing of auto-transformer for ac output current
regulation. However, this kind of current source cannot
provide the step change of high ac output current from the
beginning of testing time due to slow dynamics of
mechanical control. Thus, the proposed controlled current
ac-ac converter is designed to solve this problem to meet the
CB testing standard. All starting requirements such as ramp
and step changes of ac output current are digitally
implemented in the proposed ac-ac converter. Both
simulation and experimental results successfully verified the
current control operations of proposed ac-ac converter for
CB testing application. In addition, the power factor
correction (PFC) are also included in the proposed ac-ac
converter and presented in this paper.
Index Termspower factor correction, single-phase ac-ac
converter, buck-boost capability, current control, circuitbreaker.

I. INTRODUCTION
The CBs are very popular protecting short circuit
device in the industries and the households. The detailed
procedures and testings of CBs are given in IEC 60898
[1]. Traditionally, the current sources for CB tests are
simply designed to use the motor driven tap changing of
auto-transformer for ac output current regulation.
Nowadays, several ac-ac converters have been developed
and improved in terms of higher current rating capability
and higher efficiency. In practice, the ac-ac converters are
widely applied to various industrial applications such as
UPS, voltage stabilizer, electric welding, and etc.
In literatures, several topologies of single-phase ac-ac
converters had been reported such as three-leg ac-ac
converters [2]-[5], ac-ac chopper [6], resonant converter
[7] and ac-ac Z-source converter [8]-[9]. The full-bridge
and half-bridge dc-ac converter structures are among the
popular choices in the UPS applications (1-phase or 3phase applications) [2]-[3]. These topologies consist
mainly of two stages; controlled rectifier (e.g., boost PFC
topology) and half-bridge (or full bridge) inverter. They
can be operated either buck or boost mode of ac output
voltage control with the same or different frequency from
the input voltage frequency.
The buck type ac-ac chopper in [6] controls the ac
output voltage by chopping the ac input voltage.
However, this topology would produce the distortion on

the ac output voltage at the zero-crossings. Also, the


boost mode in this buck type ac-ac chopper is not
allowed. The resonant converter topology converts ac
voltage (or current) to another form of ac voltage (or
current) through the resonance of the stored energy in the
inductors and capacitors [7]. The resonant converter is
suitable for applications with fixed voltage conversion
ratio. It cannot provide the ac voltage output with
different frequency from the frequency of ac input
voltage. As for the ac-ac Z-source converter, the z-source
network is primarily used to store the energy [8]-[9].
Among these topologies, major disadvantages are
complexity of the circuit topology, ac output voltage
distortion, and poor transient response.
The key requirements of ac-ac converter for circuitbreaker testing are such as buck or boost mode operation,
widely range of ac output voltage control, low harmonic
distortion, fast transient dynamic response, different
frequency of ac output voltage from ac input voltage
frequency, and unity power factor of ac input current.
Referring to the above requirements, the suitable
topology of ac-ac converter for CB testing is two-leg and
three-leg ac-ac converter. However, three-leg ac-ac
converter use two more switches than two-leg ac-ac
converter. For low-cost and simplicity purpose, the twoleg ac-ac converter is suited for the CB testing
application. Therefore, this paper focuses on digital
implementation of two-leg ac-ac converter specially
designed according to the requirements of CB testing
stardard (IEC 60898).
II. STANDARD TIME-CURRENT OF CB TESTING
The CB testing under over current test condition
consists of five tests (called as a, b, c, d, and
e). In the tests a, b and c, the operated ac current
characteristic for over current CB test is ramping control,
i.e., gradual change of peak current. On the other hands,
the tests d and e, the operated ac current
characteristic for over current CB test is step control, i.e.,
sudden change of peak rated current. Table I shows the
time current characteristics for over current CB test
according to CB types such as B, C and D. The operated
currents over the rated current of CB are1.13In, 1.45In,
2.55In, 3In, 5In, 10In and 20In where In is the rated current
of CB. In the tests a, c, d and e, the initial
condition have been defined as cold, meaning that there
is no previous loading of CB before testing. However,
the initial condition of the test b is performed
immediately after the end of test a. The time-current

TABLE I
TIME-CURRENT OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS

S3

S4

iT1

iout

T1
C1
D3

C2

vC 2

vC 1

vS

S1

LS

iref
iT 1
vC 1

vC 2

III. PROPOSED SYSTEM

A. Integrated Rectifier/Boost Converter


The integrated rectifier and boost converter in the
proposed system includes three functions, i.e., (a)
rectifying ac input voltage into the dc voltage, (b)
boosting the dc voltage by controlling of ac input current,
and (c) shaping the sinusoidal waveform of ac input
current in phase with the ac input voltage. The switch S1
is operated during the positive half cycle of ac input
voltage vS in order to boost dc voltage to dc-link
capacitor C1. The waveform of ac input voltage vS is used
as waveform reference for shaping the inductor current
(iS). The inductor current (iS) is forced in phase with the
ac input voltage (unity power factor). Meanwhile, the dclink voltage (vC1) is maintained constant. Figs. 2 and 3

iS
vS

D2

operating characteristics in Table I are employed to test


the quality of CB by means of consideration of the
obtained results; with or without tripping.

The proposed system is shown in Fig.1. The ac-ac


converter topology consists of four main switches (S1, S2,
S3 and S4), two dc-link capacitors (C1 and C2), an
inductor LS, diodes D1, D2, D3 and D4, and current
transformer (T1). In the system, the vC1, vC2, iS and vS are
measured and fedback to the digital controller. The vC1 is
charged and maintained constant by ac input voltage
during its positive cycle while the vC2 is charged and
maintained constant by ac input voltage during its
negative cycle. The waveform of ac input current is
forced to follow in phase with one of ac input voltage.
The ac output current is controlled by half-bridge
switches S3 and S4, using the sinusoidal PWM. The
primary side of T1 with a turn ratio of 95:1 is connected
to the half-bridge switches S3 and S4. The ac output
current of secondary side of T1, which is connected to the
short circuited CB under test, is thus amplified by current
ratio between primary and secondary currents. The
proposed system simply employs switches S1 and S2 to
shape the sinusoidal waveform of ac input current and
boost dc-link voltages. The input power factor of the
proposed system is nearly unity. The ac output current
control can be operated with the same or different
frequency from input voltage frequency.

vC 2

D4

S2

iS

D1

vC 1

iS
vS

Fig. 1. Proposed ac-ac converter with dc-link voltage and ac output


current controllers.

show the circuit configurations of charging and


discharging current of inductor LS. The current inductor
LS is charged by turning on the switch S1 during the
positive half cycle of the ac input voltage as shown in
Fig. 2(a). On the other hands, the current inductor LS is
discharged when the switch S1 is turned off as shown in
Fig. 2(b). Likewise, the charging and discharging current
operation during the negative half cycle of the ac input
voltage is similar to one during the positive half cycle as
explained before. The turned on or off S2 operates the
charging or discharging inductor current during negative
half cycle, as shown in Fig. 3(a) and 3(b), respectively.
The voltage across the inductor LS can be expressed in
(1) and (2) during turning on and off switch (S1 or S1) in
both positive and negative half cycles. When the switch is
turned off (S1 or S2), the energy storage in inductor LS is
discharged to dc-link capacitor. The voltages of dc-link
capacitors (C1 and C2) are measured and fedback to the
digital controller.
di
(1)
Switch turned on:
v Ls = L s s = v S
dt
Switch turned off: v Ls = L s di s = v s v c
(2)
dt
where v s = V m sin( t ) , 0 < t < 2
vC 1
LS

vS

iS

D1

LS

S1

vS

(a)

iS

D1

D3

C1

(b)

Fig.2. Charging and discharging current of inductor LS during positive


half cycle, (a) current charging, (b) current discharging.

vC2
LS

vS

D1

iS

LS

S2

iS

vS

(a)

D2

D4

C2

TABLE II
CURRENT RATIO OF CURRENT TRANSFORMER (T1) AND THD OF AC
OUTPUT CURRENT

iT1(Arms) iout(Arms)
0.5
43.1
1.0
86.2
1.5
129.4
2.0
173.2
2.5
216.0
3.0
259.0
3.5
303.0
4.0
346.0
Average iout/iT1

(b)

Fig.3. Charging and discharging current of inductor LS during negative


half cycle, (a) current charging, (b) current discharging.

B. Current controlled DC-AC converter


The dc-ac converter is designed to use the half-bridge
inverter topology, consisting of two dc-link capacitors
(C1 and C2) and switch (S3 and S4). The output current of
dc-ac converter is filtered by the current transformer (T1),
resulting in the sinusoidal waveform of ac output current
with low THD. The output current of dc-ac converter is
controlled by means of bipolar sinusoidal PWM (sPWM)
on switch (S3 and S4). Both switches are operated
complementarily. The PID controller is mainly used to
regulate the output current of dc-ac converter. Fig. 4
shows the circuit configurations of bipolar sPWM
operation during positive and negative pulses.

S3

S4

iT1

iout

T1

C1

C2

vC2

vC 1

(a)

iT1

S3
C1

vC 1

S4
T1

iout
C2

vC 2
(b)

Fig.4: Circuit configurations under, (a) positive and (b) negative pulses
of bipolar sPWM operation.

When switch S3 is turned on, the positive pulse is


applied to the output of dc-ac converter. For the negative
pulse applied to the output of dc-ac converter, the switch
S4 would be turned on. The output current of dc-ac
current ( iT 1 ) is regulated by PID controller. The ac
output current is finally amplified by current transformer
with current ratio of iout / iT 1 . This current ratio iout / iT 1
is experimentally obtained and its result is shown in
following Table III. In this Table, the THD iout(%) is less
than 1.3% in a range of iout from 43.1 to 346 A(rms) and
average current ratio is 86.38.

iout/iT1 THD iout(%)


86.2
1.3
86.2
1.2
86.3
1.1
86.6
1.1
86.4
0.9
86.3
0.9
86.6
0.9
86.5
0.9
86.38

C. Control Strategy
Basically, the control strategy of the circuit is separated
into two parts. The first part is the ac input current control
for power factor correction and the dual dc-link voltage
control. The overall block diagram of this first part is
shown in Fig.5. The waveform reference comes from the
ac input voltage for shaping the ac input current. Each
measured dc-link capacitor voltage is controlled by PI
controller. The outputs of two PI controllers are selected
according to the phase cycle of ac input voltage in the
multiplex block. The absolute ac input voltage is
multiplied with the output of multiplex block in order to
generate the current reference. Then, the absolute ac input
current is shaped its waveform following this current
reference by using PID controller. The output of PID
controller is PFC signal as the modulating signal with the
triangle signal, generating PWM signals of switches S1
and S2.

vC 1

vC2

vS
iS

Fig. 5. Block diagram for PFC current control.

In the second part, the overall block diagram is shown


in Fig.6. The PID controller is used to produce the
modulating signal with the triangle signal, generating
PWM signals of switches S3 and S4. The output of dc-ac
converter is connected to the primary side of the T1. The
control of ac output current is actually on the primary
current of T1, which is measured and fedback to the
digital controller. The current ratio is used to scale up the
measured primary current iT1.

iout
i out

vS
iS

iT1

i'T1

iout

Fig. 6. Block diagram for output current control.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS


The computer simulation has been carried out to
initially verify the proposed system for current control
for CB test application. The simulation results show
the performance of control algorithms such as ac input
current control, power factor correction, dc-link
voltage control, and ac output current control. The
parameters in the proposed system shown in Fig. 1 are
summarized in Table III.
TABLE III
PARAMETERS IN THE PROPOSED SYSTEM
Parameters
Value
Parameters
Value
LS
10mH
vS
220Vrms/50Hz
C1
6,000F
0-600A/50, 60 Hz
iout
C2

6,000F

Cf

10 F

Lf

600H

vC1
vC2
fs

400V
400V
20kHz

Fig. 7 shows the simulation results for steady-state


response of ac input current. As shown, the dc-link
capacitor voltages vC1 and vC2 are well regulated at 400
V(dc) reference and the ac input current is shaped to be
sinusoidal in phase with the ac input voltage. Fig. 8
shows the simulation results for steady-state response of
ac output current controlled at 200 A(rms). The ac output
current is synchronously controlled with ac input voltage.
Fig. 9 shows the simulation results for step response of ac
output current from 100 to 200 A(rms). The dynamics
performance of current control can be verified. Fig. 10
shows the simulation results for transient responses of vC1
and vC2 due to sag voltage of ac input voltage. During
sag voltage, the vC1 and vC2 can be regulated well. Fig. 11
shows simulation results for steady-state response of ac
output current controlled at 100 A(rms) and 60 Hz, that is
different frequency from input voltage.

Vc1

Vc2

vS

iS

Fig. 7. Simulation results for steady-state response of dc-link voltage


voltages at 400 V(dc) and ac input voltage and current.

Fig. 8. Simulation results for steady-state response of ac output current


control at 200 A(rms).

vS

iS

iout

Fig. 9. Simulation results for transient response of ac output current


control with step change from 100 to 200 A(rms).

vS

iS
Vc1

Vc2

Fig. 10. Simulation results for transient response of dc-link voltages due
to sag voltage of ac input voltage.

vS

iS

iout

Fig. 11.Simulation results for steady-state response of ac output current


at 100 A(rms) and 60 Hz.

Next, the simulation results showing the current


controls according to CB tests a (1.13In) and d (3In)
are presented in Figs, 12 and 13, respectively. These tests
are specified for CB type B with 32A rating. As seen, the
ramping and step change of ac output currents are
successfully controlled by the proposed system.

can be well regulated. Next, Fig. 19 shows the ac output


current controlled at 100 A(rms) and 60 Hz. This result
shows the possibility for the CB testing at 60 Hz.
Vc2

Vc1

vS
iS
Fig. 12.Simulation results for CB testing in test a by ramping current
up to 36.16 A(rms) of ac output current.
Fig. 14. Experimental results for steady-state response of dc-link
voltage voltages at 400 V(dc) and ac input voltage and current.

Vc2

Vc1

Vdc ref

Fig. 13. Simulation results for CB testing in test d at 96 A(rms) of ac


output current.

Fig. 15. Experimental results for dc-link voltages with step change from
400 to 350 V(dc).

vS

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The laboratory prototype was constructed to verify the
proposed system. The digital controller is designed by
using
a
32-bit
fixed-point
microcontroller
(STM32F103VET6) for implementing all algorithms in
the proposed system. The parameters in the real
implementation of the proposed system are the same as
ones in simulation previously seen in Table III. The
hardware prototype set the dc-link voltage reference of
400 V(dc). The switching frequency (fs) of the PWM
signals for both ac input current and ac output current
controls is same as 20 kHz. The dead time of leg switches
is set to 1s. The hardware is designed for 0-600 A(rms)
output with 220V, 50Hz input voltage. The frequency of
ac output voltage range can be either 50 or 60 Hz. The
dual-pack IGBT module is rated 1200V/50A and
specification of four diodes are 1200V/30A.
Referring to Fig 7, the same simulation condition is
experimented and shown in Fig. 14. The integrated
rectifier/boost converter and dual dc-link voltage/PFC
control performance is successfully implemented. The ac
input current is sinusoidal in phase with ac input voltage.
Then, the step responses of dual dc-link voltages from
400 to 350 V(dc) are tested and illustrated in Fig. 15. In
the test, the ac output current is controlled constant at 200
A(rms). Fig. 16 shows the experimental results for
steady-state response of ac output current controlled at
200 A(rms). Similar to simulation result shown in Fig. 8,
the ac output current is synchronously controlled with ac
input voltage. In addition, the step response of ac output
current from 100 to 200 A(rms) is successfully tested and
shown in Fig. 17. The disturbance due to sag voltage of
ac input voltage is also experimented as seen in Fig. 18.
During occurrence of sag voltage, dual dc-link voltages

iS

iout

Fig. 16. Experimental results for steady-state response of ac output


current control at 200 A(rms).

iout

vS iS

Fig. 17. Experimental results for transient response of ac output current


control with step change from 100 to 200 A(rms).

Vc1

vS

Vc2

iS

Fig. 18. Experimental results for transient response of dc-link voltages


due to sag voltage of ac input voltage.
.

vS

iref

iS

iout

iout

Fig. 19. Experimental results for steady-state response of ac output


current at 100 A(rms) and 60 Hz.

Next, Figs. 20 and 21 show the experimental results


for the current control according to CB test a (1.13In)
and d (3In), respectively. As seen, the control
performance of ac output current is effectively following
the CB testing standard for CB type B with 32A rating.
Then, the ramping response of higher ac output current
from 0 to 300 A(rms) is tested and shown in Fig.22. And
the step response of high ac output current from 0 to 400
A(rms) is given in Fig. 23. Both tests show the capability
of high current control in the proposed system.

Fig. 23. Experimental results for step response of ac output current from
0 to 400 A(rms).

VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the single-phase ac-ac converter with ac
output current controls is proposed and digitally
implemented for the circuit-breaker (CB) testing standard
(IEC 60898). Both simulation and experimental results
show the improved transient step current control
performance over the traditional ac current source based
on the motor driven tap changing of auto-transformer.
The proposed system is simple and low cost with
minimum switches employed. The boost PFC topology
with dual dc-link voltage controls is also incorporated in
the proposed system.

iref

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The financial support from the royal golden jubilee
Ph.D program, the Thailand research fund is
acknowledged. The student scholarship recipient code is
the 1.E.KT/51/K.1.

iout

Fig. 20. Experimental results for CB testing in test a by ramping


current up to 36.16 A(rms) of ac output current.

iref

REFERENCES
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[3]

iout

[4]
[5]

Fig. 21. Experimental results for CB testing in test d at 96 A(rms) of


ac output current.
[6]

iref
[7]

iout

[8]
[9]

Fig. 22. Experimental results for ramping response of ac output current


from 0 to 300 A(rms).

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