A new family of modular IGBT converters for traction applications

Electrical locomotives and trains are nowadays driven by asynchronous motors, which are fed by voltage source inverters. The IGBT two level inverter allows a standardization of the topology and the control strategy over the whole power and voltage range. However, different application conditions (cooling, dc-link voltage, power range) lead to different converters. To allow a flexible converter design with proven components, a family of power electronic building blocks was developed, which uses 3.3 kV and 6.5 kV IGBT and achieves an output power of up to 3 MW