Ala Qawasmi participates in the international conference IEEE PEDG 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Mr. Ala Qawasmi presents his paper on “A New Thyristor-Based Power Electronic Device for DC Circuit Breakers in Medium-Voltage Applications” at the IEEE 9th International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems (PEDG) 2018 between 25th and 28th June 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. In the following the abstract of the paper is given.

In the paper, a power electronic device based on gate turn-off thyristors is introduced. The Diode-Assisted Gate- Commutated Thyristor (DAGCT) is designed and optimized for hybrid DC circuit breaker applications employing a fast mechanical circuit breaker. The main topology and operation of the device are analyzed. A press-pack package with a large thermal capacity is developed and the device was successfully simulated for turn-off of a fault current of 3kA within 1.5 μs. Higher interruption currents could be reached, whereas thermal limits of the components used and maximum fall and rise time of the device current should be considered. A proof-of-concept test is illustrated.