Investigation and redistribution the loss of IGBTs in the Three-level Neutral Point Clamped (3L-NPC) inverter with Direct Torque Control technique (DTC)

Abstract

The unbalanced dissipation of heat from IGBTs in the multi-level inverters causes the degradation of their performance and the reduction of their lifetime during the industrial operation. In this paper, the heat of all IGBTs in the Three-level Neutral Point Clamped (3L-NPC) inverter will be investigated through the control of the induction machine using direct torque control (DTC) technique. The proposed strategy for re-distributing the losses from the most stressed IGBTs to the others by modifying the DTC pattern will be analized and simulated. All results are presented graphically from the simulation by MATLAB/Simulink software.