Performance Analysis of a Fault Isolation System for Fault-Tolerant Voltage-Fed PWM Motor Drives

The paper presents the performance analysis of a DC short-circuit (SC) isolation system utilized in fault-tolerant voltage-fed PWM motor drives. The fault isolation is achieved by forcing a high-speed fuse to blow whenever a short-circuit condition occurs in one of the leg composing the inverter. The theoretical study allows to identify the influence of the electrical parameters composing the SC loop. Moreover, a detailed simulative and experimental investigation is provided to validate the theoretical study. The experimental results have been carried out by testing a single leg of a modular multiphase fault-tolerant inverter integrating high-speed fuse protections. The tests have been performed by considering different high-speed fuses and DC-link capacitor bank configurations.