Power Electronics

& Drives
Chapter 5
AC-AC Converters

College of Engineering and Technology

Adigrat University
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department
ECEg4222/4312: Power Electronics & Drives
G/Tsadik Teklay (M.Sc. Electrical Power Engineering)
CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION

• SINGLE PHASE AC VOLTAGE REGULATORS

• PHASE CONTROL
• ON-OFF OR INTEGRAL-CYCLE CONTROL

•THREE PHASE AC VOLTAGE REGULATORS

Introduction
 A power electronic ac–ac converter, in generic form, accepts electric power from one system
and converts it for delivery to another ac system with waveforms of different amplitude,
frequency, and phase.

 The ac–ac converters employed to vary the rms voltage across the load at constant frequency
are known as ac voltage controllers or ac regulators.

 The voltage control is accomplished either by (1) phase control under natural commutation
using pairs of silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCRs) or triacs or (2) by on/off control under forced
commutation/self-commutation using fully controlled self-commutated switches, such as gate
turn-off thyristors (GTOs), power transistors, integrated gate bipolar transistor (IGBTs), MOS-
controlled thyri stors (MCTs), i nte-grated gate-commutated thyristor (IGCTs), etc.
Cont’d
 The ac–ac power converters in which ac power at one frequency is directly converted to
ac power at another frequency without any intermediate dc conversion link (as in the
case of inverters) are known as cycloconverters, the majority of which use naturally
commutated SCRs for their operation when the maximum output frequency is limited to
a fraction of the input frequency.
APPLICATIONS OF AC VOLTAGE CONTROLLERS

 Lighting / Illumination control in ac power circuits (including light-dimmer

circuits).
 electrical heating
 electrical welding
 Industrial heating & Domestic heating.
 Transformers tap changing (on load transformer tap changing).
 Speed control of induction motors (single phase and poly phase ac
induction motor control).
 output voltage stabilizers
 AC magnet controls.

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Cont’d
 Traditional/conventional methods

Variable inductor method:

• Requires bulky and costly full-
Variable resistor method: load current compatible variable
• Simple but efficiency is very poor inductor

Apart from the losses in these components, the rms value of output voltage is
highly load dependent. Therefore, in case of a fluctuating load, it is difficult to
maintain the output voltage constant.
Cont’d

Autotransformer method: is one of the best methods but suffers from the demerits
due to its size, weight, and cost.
AC VOLTAGE CONTROL TECHNIQUES

 Two types of control are normally used:

• On-off Control
• Phase angle control

 In on-off control, thyristor switches connect the load to the ac

source for a few cycles of the input voltage and then disconnected
for a few cycles.

 In phase control, thyristor switches connect the load to the ac

source for a portion of each cycle.

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Cont’d
 Electronic switches connect and disconnect the source and the load at
regular intervals.

 In a switching scheme called phase control, switching takes place during

every cycle of the source, in effect removing some of the source waveform
before it reaches the load.

 Another type of control is integral-cycle control, whereby the source is

connected and dis-connected for several cycles at a time.
Single-phase AC Voltage Controller
 Comprises a pair of SCRs connected back-to-
back (also known as inverse-parallel or anti -
parallel) between the ac supply and the load.
 This connection provides a bidirectional full-
wave symmetrical control, and the SCR pair
can be replaced by a triac for low-power
applications. (a) full wave, two SCRs in inverse-parallel;

(b) full wave with triac

Cont’d
 Alternate arrangements are shown in Fig. c with two diodes
and two SCRs to provide a common cathode connection for
simplifying the gating circuit without requiring isolation and in
Fig. d with one SCR and four diodes to reduce the device cost
(c) full wave with two SCRs and
but with increased device conduction loss.
two diodes;

(d) full wave with four diodes

and one SCR
Cont’d
 An SCR and diode combination known as thyrode
controller, as shown in Fig. e, provides a unidirectional
half-wave asymmetrical voltage control with device
economy, but introduces dc component and more
harmonics, and thus it is not so practical to use except
for very low-power-heating load.
Phase-Controlled Single-phase AC Voltage Controller
 With phase control, the switches conduct the
load current for a chosen period of each input
cycle of voltage and
 with on/off control, the switches connect the
load either for a few cycles of input voltage and
disconnect it for the next few cycles (integral
cycle control) or the switches are turned on and
off several times within alternate half cycles of
input voltage.

phase control
Cont’d
 Single-Phase Controller with a Resistive
Load:
• These are the types of waveforms that
• exist in a common incandescent light-dimmer circuit
• If 𝑣𝑠 (𝜔𝑡) = 𝑉𝑚 sin𝜔𝑡 is the source voltage,
Output voltage is

• the rms output voltage with T1 triggered at α

can be found from the half-wave symmetry as

• Note that Vo can be varied from V s to 0 by

varying α from 0to π.
Cont’d
 The rms current in the load and the source is

 The average value of the output voltage is:

1  2
Vdc  [  2 Vs sin  t d ( t )   2 Vs sin  t d ( t )]
2  

2 Vs
Vo  (cos   1)
2

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Cont’d
 and the power factor of the load is
Cont’d
 The average source current is zero because of half-wave symmetry.
The average SCR current is

 Since each SCR carries one-half of the line current, the rms current
in each SCR is
Cont’d
 Single-Phase Controller with an RL Load
Cont’d
 When a gate signal is applied to S1 at 𝜔𝑡 =
𝛼, Kirchhoff’s voltage law for the circuit is
expressed as

 The solution for current in this equation

Cont’d
 The extinction angle is the angle at which the current returns to zero, when 𝜔𝑡 = 𝛽,

 which must be solved numerically for 𝛽

 A gate signal is applied to S2 at 𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋 + 𝛼, and the load current is negative but has a
form identical to that of the positive half-cycle.
 The conduction angle is defined as 𝛾 = 𝛽 − 𝛼
 In the interval between 𝜋 and 𝛽 when the source voltage is negative and the load
current is still positive, S2 cannot be turned on because it is not forward-biased. The
gate signal to S2 must be delayed at least until the current in S1 reaches zero, at 𝜔𝑡 =
𝛽.
 The delay angle is therefore at least 𝛼 ≥ 𝛽 − 𝜋.
Cont’d
 This SCR combination can act as a solid-state
relay, connecting or disconnecting the load
from the ac source by gate control of the SCRs.

 The load is disconnected from the source

when no gate signal is applied, and the load
has the same voltage as the source when a
gate signal is continuously applied.

 In practice, the gate signal may be a high-

frequency series of pulses rather than a
continuous dc signal.
 PRINCIPLE OF ON-OFF CONTROL (INTEGRAL CYCLE CONTROL)

If the input voltage is connected to load for n

cycles and is disconnected for m cycles, the
output load voltage is found from:
1/ 2
 n 2 
  2 V sin  t d ( t )
2 2
Vo  rms
 
s
 2 ( n m ) 0

n
Vo  rms  Vs  Vs k
mn

Note that k is called the duty cycle, and the

power factor and output voltage vary with the
square root of k.

This type of control is applied in applications which have high mechanical inertia and high thermal time
constant.

Typical examples are industrial heating and speed control of motors.