EE3147 POWER ELECTRONICS
AC/AC CONVERTERS
Dr. Duy-Dinh Nguyen
Dept. of IA, School of EE
General introduction
𝑖𝑑𝑐 𝑖𝑎𝑐
AC
𝑣 𝑑𝑐 𝑣 𝑎𝑐
AC
AC source AC/AC inverters AC loads
AC grid, AC voltage AC motors,
secondary winding of controllers, AC grids,
line transformers, Cycloconverters, Fan, pumps,
secondary side of Matrix converters, Lighting systems,
high freq. isolated Heating systems,
converters, etc.
Generator
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outputs 3
Classification
AC/AC converters
AC voltage Cyclo- Matrix
controllers converters Converters
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AC voltage controllers: R-Load
• Single phase AC
voltage controllers
Various types of single
phase AC voltage Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: R-Load
• Output RMS voltage
where is the firing angle
• RMS current in SCR
Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: RL-Load
• Output RMS voltage
where is the firing angle, is
the extinction angle, is the
load angle:
Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: R-Load
𝑜
• Three phase AC 𝛼=30
voltage controllers
𝑜
𝛼=75
𝑜
𝛼=120
Various types of three
phase AC voltage Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: R-Load
𝑜
• Output voltage depends on 𝛼=30
𝑜
𝛼=75
𝑜
𝛼=120
Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: RL-Load
• For L-Load (R = 0 ) 𝛼=90
𝑜
𝑜
𝛼 =60
• For RL Load, analysis is
complicated
Typical waveform with R-
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AC voltage controllers: RL-Load
• Control range of three- 𝛼=90
𝑜
phase AC voltage
controllers
𝑜
𝛼 =60
Control range with
various types of load Typical waveform with RL-
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Cycloconverters
• Single phase
Cycloconverters
50 Hz to 16 Hz conversion
Structure and equivalent 50 Hz to 10 Hz conversion
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Cycloconverters
• Three phase
Cycloconverters
Structure Typical waveforms
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High frequency cycloconverter
• High frequency
input from
transformer
• SPWM is done in Cyclo-inverter
the primary side
Typical waveforms
(*) Kim, J.K., Kim, S.G. and Park, S.M., 2019, October. Analysis of Switch Losses in Cycloconverter-Type High Frequency Link Converter
06/10/2025 for Bidirectional Battery Chargers. In 2019 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC) (pp. 1-6). IEEE. 14
Dual-Active-Bridge AC/AC converters
• Bidirectional switches
• High-frequency
transformer
• Phase-shift DAB AC/AC converter
modulation
Forward mode Reverse mode
(*) Qin, H. and Kimball, J.W., 2012. Solid-state transformer architecture using AC–AC dual-active-bridge converter. IEEE Transactions on
06/10/2025 Industrial Electronics, 60(9), pp.3720-3730. 15
Matrix converters
• Indirect matrix converters
• There is a “virtual” DC bus
• Capacitor-free
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Matrix converters
• Direct matrix converters
• Direct AC/AC conversion
• NO DC-bus at all
• Bidirectional
switches
• Complicated
switch
selection
table
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Conclusions
• Main application sectors
• Soft-starters: pumps, blowers, fans, etc.; Heating,
lighting control; Electronics contactors; Static reactive
compensators
• High-power low-speed reversible AC drives;
• Variable speed AC drives
• etc.
• Pros.
• Save component counts, less conversion stage
• Capacitor-less
• Cons.
• Bulky, high harmonics, low power factor
• Complicated control (Matrix converters)
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Low flexibility 18
THANKS
FOR
ATTENTIONS
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