Power Electronics Building Block (PEBB) for Static Conversion Apparatus Devoted to Low-Voltage Fed Electric Drives

This paper investigates the potential use of the PEBB concept in low-voltage fed power converters, such as those being currently utilized in particular traction drives (e.g. forklift drives or wheelchair drives) or those being envisaged to be soon utilized on board automobiles being equipped with a 42 V electric power system including both engine directly-coupled starter/alternator and ultracapacitor-based storage system. Concerning such specific applications, various power converter topologies having input voltage in the range from 24 V to 80 V and rating power from few kW up to 30 kW are likely to be used in order to accomplish bi-directional DC-DC or DC-AC power conversion. Thereby, the envisaged development of a low-voltage PEBB (i.e. LV-PEBB) module including standardized power, thermal, and control interfaces is of great interest for power converter manufacturers as it would be expected to lead to great simplification in converter design and assembly and thereby should allow substantial reduction of mass-production costs