A Novel Approach to Accurately Determine the tq Parameter of Thyristors

Hatem Garrab (1) , Atef Jedidi (1) , Hervé Morel (2) , Kamel Besbes (1)

1 FSM - Faculté des Sciences de Monastir
2 EE - Ampère, Département Energie Electrique

The continued use of high-voltage thyristor devices in industry and their increased use in high-voltage dc transmission systems call for more attention to the properties of these devices. One of the important thyristor parameters is their turn-off time tq, which can be a limiting factor when applying thyristors at elevated switching frequencies. Hence, the accurate measurement of tq and its variation versus the operating conditions remains a crucial task for thyristor converters operating at elevated switching frequencies. In this paper, a proper test circuit for measuring this parameter with a high level of accuracy has been designed and built. Owing to the test circuit specificity, the variation effects of several electrical and physical constraints, such as the forward current IF , the reverse applied voltage VR, the operating temperature To, and the ramp rate of the forward reapplied voltage dVD/dt, on the tq parameter of thyristors are also studied and analyzed based on the physics of semiconductor devices and associated simulations.

Mots clés: thyristors; Finite-element method (FEM); modeling; simulation

Domaines: Autre; Energie électrique

Hatem Garrab, Atef Jedidi, Hervé Morel, Kamel Besbes. A Novel Approach to Accurately Determine the tq Parameter of Thyristors. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2017, 64 (1), pp.206 - 216. ⟨10.1109/tie.2016.2609381⟩. ⟨hal-01617496⟩