Graduation date: 2007
In advanced hybrid electric vehicle development, performance and dependability are essential considerations in the design process. High efficiency is crucial in a successful design and fault tolerance is necessary to provide limp-home capability under faulted operating conditions. The reduction of electromagnetic interference is mandatory to reduce interference in communications and control systems, especially in military applications. This thesis is a performance analysis of several generator and active rectifier configurations for use in military hybrid electric vehicle applications. Simulation results are obtained using Matlab Simulink with experimental hardware testing for verification.
Fault tolerance is explored in generator design through the use of multi-phase generator configurations in both wye-connected and independent phase configurations. Passive rectifier investigations are included as a baseline for active rectifier performance comparison. Simple voltage-controlled active rectifier results are obtained with initial three- and six-phase generator configurations. Current-controlled rectifier models are then simulated with more advanced generator designs. In all simulations, performance is evaluated through harmonic analysis of rectifier input currents and output dc bus voltage, as well as input power factor measurements.
Scaled hardware testing is performed for verification of simulation results. Multiple generator configurations are represented through utilization of a three-phase, fully programmable source with various transformer configurations at the output to achieve six-phase capability. Several active rectifier configurations are obtained through the use of configurable Powerex H-Bridge IGBT assemblies with control provided using an Opal-RT hardware-in-loop rapid prototyping system.