A Comparative Study of Two Diagnostic Methods Based on the Switching Voltage Pattern for IGBT Open-Circuit Faults in Voltage-Source Inverters

This paper reports an investigation conducted on two diagnostic methods based on the switching voltage pattern of IGBT open-circuit faults in voltage-source inverters (VSIs). One method was based on the bridge arm pole voltage, and the other was based on bridge arm line voltage. With an additional simple circuit, these two diagnostic methods detected and effectively identified single and multiple open-circuit faults of inverter IGBTs. A comparison of the times for the diagnosis and anti-interference features between these two methods is presented. The diagnostic time of both methods was less than 280ns in the best case. The diagnostic time for the method based on the bridge arm pole voltage was less than that of the method based on the bridge arm line voltage and was 1/2 of the fundamental period in the worst case. An experimental study was carried out to show the effectiveness of and the differences between these two methods.