Idea implementation and demonstration of electric drive and power electronics solutions with improved energy and resource efficiency: Subproject (IDEALER)

iFE: EMC-optimal input and output filters using 3D simulation

The IDEALER project uses results from the preliminary project Ide3AL. In the preliminary project, it was basically shown that a control cabinet inverter with integrated sine filter using fast switching SiC power semiconductors leads to a better energy efficiency of the drive system compared to a drive system with conventional IGBT inverter. Due to the high switching frequency, the filter size can be reduced, the inverter can be kept compact, and losses in motor cable and motor for charging/discharging can be minimized. Furthermore, it could be shown that the technical motor cable length limitation (with is several 10 meters for shielded cables) no longer apply. In the future a lot of previously sensor-less drive applications can be solved with feedback-controlled drives. This results in additional energy-saving potentials that previously could not be tapped economically.

However, it has been learned that the high switching speed of SiC power semiconductors cannot be controlled easily. The electric fields radiated by the switching cell and the sinusoidal filters, respectively fed into the motor cable as conducted interference emissions, exceed the current EMV limits for unshielded motor cables. For the same reason, additional losses still occur in the motor and its feeding lines. Therefore, the efficiency targets were not fully achieved. Today it´s not possible to determine these additional losses using the calculation methods specified in the standards. Furthermore, there are electromagnetic couplings between the input and output filter elements, so that state of the art EMC concepts on the mains are not portable.