The development of a 20MW PWM driver for advanced fifteen-phase propulsion induction motors

Abstract

Since the power capacity needed for the propulsion of large ships is very large, a multiphase AC induction propulsion mode is generally adopted to meet the higher requirements of reliability, redundancy and maintainability. This paper gives a detailed description of the development of a 20MW fifteen-phase PWM driver for advanced fifteen-phase propulsion induction motors with a special third-harmonic injection in terms of the main circuit hardware, control system design, experiments, etc. The adoption of the modular design method for the main circuit hardware design can make the enclosed mechanical structure simple and maintainable. It can also avoid the larger switch stresses caused by the multiple turn on of the IGBTs in conventional large-capacity converter systems. The use of the distributed controller design method based on a high-speed fiber-optic ring net for the control system can overcome such disadvantages as the poor reliability and long maintenance times arising from the conventional centralized controller which is designed according to point-to-point communication. Finally, the performance of the 20MW PWM driver is verified by experimentation on a new fifteen-phase induction propulsion motor.