Analysis and design of a high efficiency, high power density three-phase silicon carbide inverter

Abstract

This paper discusses a design methodology for high power density converter design. The ideas are applicable to any topology and any switching technology. Particular attention is paid to the DC-link capacitors, as they are a regular point of failure and take up a sizeable portion of the volume in converters. In moving to wide-bandgap devices, smaller and more reliable film capacitors can be used by switching faster, thereby increasing the power density. A prototype inverter capable of switching 30kW is built using the discussed ideas and low power experiments show good correlation between the estimated and measured efficiency. A power density of 34kW/L is achieved under rated conditions when switching at 100kHz.