Design of a Medium Voltage PCB-based Power Bus Considering Current Carrying Capacity for Insulation Integrity in a 6 kV 500 kW Converter

In this work, the design and analysis of a medium voltage (MV) printed circuit board (PCB) -based planar power bus is presented. The bus has been fabricated and implemented in a 6 kV 500 kW modular power converter. The partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) was measured at 10.5 kV peak under 60 Hz sinusoidal excitation and was discharge free up to 12 kV under DC excitation. To ensure insulation reliability while operating at 83.3 A rms, a method to improve current distribution among via-in-pad (VIP) designs is improved using Ansys Maxwell Q3D. Short circuit (SC) tests are performed with peak currents of 5 kA with the PDIV checked subsequently to validate the robustness of a PCB-based planar bus.