A comparison study of high power IGBT-based and thyristor-based AC to DC converters in medium power DC arc furnace plants

With the advent of semiconductors manufacturing technology, current and voltage ratings of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) modules have been increased. Because of the faster switching capability, thyristors are being supplanted by the IGBTs. This new generation of IGBT modules are being increasingly used in applications such as AC/DC choppers to produce large controlled currents. Typical DC arc furnace plants use thyristor-based AC/DC converter in their rectifying system. However, implementation of the IGBT-based rectifiers offer many advantages compared with the conventional thyristor-based rectifiers. In this paper a comprehensive comparison between these two types of rectification systems has been performed. A medium power DC arc furnace plant of 800V, 100 kA and 80 MW is simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK and through the simulation results, IGBT-based and thyristor-based rectification systems are compared to one another.