This study presents a comprehensive approach for the design optimisation of passive components and heatsinks in power electronic converters. The design and selection of passive components are posed as a multi-objective optimisation problem, which can be simplified to a single-objective optimisation based on preferences and weights assigned by the designer. The mathematical equations describing the efficiency, volume, and reliability are laid out to describe the feasible space for optimisation in this study. In addition to the proposed optimisation, a substantial amount of passive component comparison data has been consolidated and presented in this study. The results from the optimisation are demonstrated on the target power electronic circuit of a regulated transformer rectifier unit for more-electric aircrafts. The optimisation framework is developed in a generic manner that would lend itself to the optimisation of any choice of converter topology, circuit components, or objective functions.

The current output type space solar array simulator (SSAS) is an important test equipment for a spacecraft power supply to achieve high dynamic output response performance and meet the power current high precision requirements of the power conditioning unit (PCU). However, the current output type SSAS cannot produce a stable open circuit voltage when the output terminal is completely disconnected from the load. Therefore, it is impossible to reliably test the PCU with different architectures. In this study, the open circuit voltage control output problem is analysed, and a parallel resistor–capacitor–diode (RCD) dummy load branch in the SSAS output port is proposed to ensure that the SSAS outputs high-precision open circuit voltage values and provides stable series switching performance without adversely affecting the shunt switching performance. The proposed solution yielded excellent experimental results for a 1 kW hardware power SSAS platform. The open circuit voltage control accuracy is 0.5%, and the series switching test and shunt switching test yielded stable performances with a high dynamic response that quickly converges to the target working points at 1.25 kHz switching frequency, indicating that the PCU can be reliably tested regardless of whether a series architecture or a shunt architecture is used.

Different power converter topologies are used to perform the energy exchange between an AC grid and a DC source belonging to a hybrid electric micro-grid. A single-phase single-stage isolated AC–DC power converter is one of them. Moreover, this power converter can operate under different modulation strategies. The phase-shift modulation (PSM) strategy is capable of varying the phase between the voltages applied to the high-frequency transformer terminals of the power converter in order to control the energy flow in both directions. Based on the PSM strategy, this study presents a novel modified PSM strategy capable of controlling the power flow in both directions and obtaining a current with low total harmonic distortion and a power factor close to 1 for the entire operating range on the AC side. Considering the novel modulation strategy to be proposed, a comparison of three PSM-based modulation strategies was carried out taking into account the total harmonic distortion of current injected into the AC grid, the power factor and the average power transferred. A theoretical analysis was carried out and the results obtained were validated by means of experimental results.

To control the high-frequency acoustic noise of the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) with the space vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM), an investigation into the mechanism of the sideband vibro-acoustics is presented in this study. Especially, the relationship is developed between the sideband electromagnetic components and the mechanical vibro-acoustics, which paves the fundamentals to reduce the noise at the sources. Firstly, the analytical derivations of the sideband voltage and current harmonics are expressed, while the magnetic components of permanent magnet and armature reaction are also discussed in different carrier frequency domains. Secondly, the corresponding radial electromagnetic force analysis is established to acquire the pattern of the vibro-acoustic. Finally, the proposed multi-physics models are reconstructed by coupling spatial and temporal features, where the amplitudes are also calculated. A 12-slot10-pole prototype PMSM is considered as a case study to testify the accuracy of the proposed method, where the corresponding electromagnetic components are calculated and measured under different conditions, together with the vibration and acoustics. This investigation may provide a new route for the acoustics prediction and the precise optimisation of PMSM.

This work proposes a novel analysis framework to model the dual-active-bridge (DAB) converter static behaviour when it is subjected to a multi-variables modulation. Novel equations that relate the transferred active power and the total transformer apparent power are derived and an iterative analysis process is proposed. The main objective is to define the total apparent power maps for a given active power level and find the lowest apparent power points. Based on that, the reduction of transformer volume and copper losses can be analysed. In general, it was observed that the lowest total apparent power is obtained for operation with and tends to occur at small angles. Moreover, in these conditions, there is also the smallest transformer volume and the lowest copper losses. Experimental results at 800, 1200, and 1600 W of a DAB prototype are presented to validate the proposed analyses, where a maximum core volume variation of 35% was obtained for a given active power level.