Design and Component Selection of Three-Phase T-type Power Factor Correction (PFC) rectifier

This paper provides a comprehensive design and component selection of a 11kW 3-phase T-type Power Factor Correction (PFC) converter operating at 140kHz switching frequency. This work focuses on presenting a thorough approach for the selection of key power components, including the switches and DC-link capacitors. The proper selection of switches ensures optimal efficiency of the PFC converter and requires a detailed analysis of the switching loss for a T-type converter. The mathematical investigation of the charge-related switching loss for a T-type leg is studied to estimate the semiconductor losses. Based on this analysis and with a preference of lower switching losses, a comparison of available switches in the market is conducted to select the appropriate switch for the design. To choose the DC-link capacitors, the paper discusses calculation of the switching cycle average of the current flowing into the capacitor neutral point and formulates the neutral point voltage variation. Subsequently, the capacitance is selected in order to confine neutral point voltage variations within an acceptable range. Finally, the experimental results are presented, including the voltage variations in DC-link capacitor neutral point, and operating temperature of the switches under 11kW load. The results provide a comprehensive evaluation of the converter performance and validate the effectiveness of the method to calculate the T-type converter switching loss and neutral point voltage variation.