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Power Electronics

Every converter in this subject is built from devices that are never allowed to sit half-on, because that is the only way to move kilowatts without dissipating them. These topics animate the switching and the waveform it produces.

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1 topic you can watch now, 21 still to come.

Why switching

The argument that decides the shape of every circuit that follows.

  • Power diodes and their recovery
  • SCR construction, triggering and commutation
  • MOSFET and IGBT as power switches
  • Switching losses and snubbers
  • Heat sinks and thermal design

AC to DC: rectifiers

Taking a sinusoid and getting a usable DC level out of it.

  • Single-phase half and full-wave rectifiers
  • Controlled rectifiers and firing angle
  • Three-phase rectifiers
  • Effect of source inductance

DC to DC: choppers

Changing a DC voltage by chopping it and averaging the result.

  • Step-down and step-up choppers
  • Duty cycle control
  • Buck, boost and buck-boost converters
  • Continuous and discontinuous conduction

DC to AC: inverters

Manufacturing a sinusoid out of a battery and four switches.

  • Single-phase bridge inverters
  • Three-phase inverters and 180°/120° conduction
  • PWM techniques and harmonic elimination
  • Multilevel inverters

Applications

Where all of this actually ends up.

  • AC voltage controllers and cycloconverters
  • Switched-mode power supplies
  • DC and AC motor drives
  • UPS and solar inverters
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