SiC POWER CONVERTERS FOR MILITARY MOBILE HYBRID POWER SYSTEMS

Silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor devices offer several advantages to power converter design when compared with silicon (Si). An increase in power density can be achieved with SiC thanks to the reduced conduction and switching losses and to the ability to withstand higher temperatures [1]. The main system level benefits of using SiC devices on mobile hybrid power systems include large reductions in the size, weight, and cooling of the power conditioning. In this paper, the authors describe the Wide-bandgap-enabled Advanced Versatile Energy System (WAVES) with a focus on the design and testing of a SiC prototype of a WAVES power inverter. The prototype is a 10 kW three-phase AC/DC inverter that is air-cooled, IP-67 rated, bi-directional, operates down to a power factor of 0.4, and designed to have overload capability up to 350% for up to 250µs of nominal rating. Because the inverter is bidirectional, it may be used as an AC input to DC output battery charger or as a DC input to AC output AC voltage supply meeting military power quality standards.

Citation: S. Lentijo, P. Stone, J. Porter, and C. Peterson, “SiC Power Converters for Military Mobile Hybrid Power Systems”, In Proceedings of the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS), NDIA, Novi, MI, Aug. 10-12, 2021.