Simulation of a multi motor soft switching converter for electric vehicle application

This paper presents simulation and experimental results of a double stage DC-AC-AC converter including a high frequency transformer link. It integrates soft switching techniques and is intended to be used for driving two high voltage (400 V) high power (18 kW) synchronous brushless DC motors. Each motor is connected to a different cycloconverter. Power switches are realised with IGBT transistors for the second stage. For the first stage, MOSFETs are used. The high frequency transformer (20 kHz) allows low input voltage (for example 67 V). For the simulations, HF transformer and synchronous motor models have been developed. The complete structure has been simulated using Saber software (Analogy Inc.) and practical tests with the transformer are presented.