Comparative analysis of impedance source-SiC converters for traction systems

This paper presents the comparative analysis of power converters topologies with impedance source. The analysis consist in the comparison between two power converter topologies: the first topology is a current source inverter (CSI) that incorporates SiC devices with Quasi-Z source impedance; the second topology is CSI power converter built using SiC devices that incorporates Trans-Z source impedance. Both power converters operate with a switching frequency of 100 KHz. The use of SiC devices allows the converters to operate at higher frequency and to reduce the power losses. Additionally, it would allow the reduction of volume and weight of the elements of the source impedance. The goal of this article is to present an analysis of power losses, stress, volume and weight of the passive elements of the SiC proposed topologies using simulations and to compare them with conventional Si devices topologies with Quasi-Z and Trans-Z source impedance. The switching frequency in these topologies was set to 20 KHz in order to validate and demonstrate the advantages of SiC devices.