A fault tolerant AC/DC converter for electrical gen-set applications

A fault tolerant AC/DC Converter for Electrical Gen-Set applications is presented based on a multilevel, open-end winding, topology managed by a suitable control strategy. More precisely, the considered converter topology provides the mean to independently control the currents of two phases when the third one is open without the need to reconfigure the circuit through auxiliary switches. The electrical generator is thus forced to operate in a two-phase mode, while holding the output DC voltage at the value generated by the system in health conditions. According to the proposed approach, this is achieved only by modifying the reference frame transformation accomplished to control the current vector. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is evaluated by simulations performed on a 2kW PMSG system.