The Philosophy of Power Electronics
This chapter explains why power electronics is so special and difficult to understand. A state equation is obtained for a switching converter example and generally compared with conventional systems. However, general unified approaches for understanding a
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The Philosophy of Power Electronics
This chapter explains why power electronics is so special and difficult to understand. A state equation is obtained for a switching converter example and generally compared with conventional systems. However, general unified approaches for understanding and analysis of power circuits are deliberately sought in this book as an extension of similar works done in electronic circuits, which were believed to be very complicated and formidable to handle. Since electronics switches such as transistors and diodes are used to control power, power electronics has become an important area of electronics. As electronic switches started being used in power circuits, engineers realized that the switching power circuits are quite different from conventional electric circuits. The characteristics of switching power circuits that confound engineers are time-varying nature and AC (alternating current) circuit dynamics, as shown in Fig. 1.1. In this chapter, these unique features of power electronics are explained as an introduction to power electronics. I like power electronics because it is a kind of 3D work, i.e., diversified, dangerous, and difficult. To be a power electronics expert, one should know not only electronics such as electric circuit theory, micro-electronics, control, signal processing, semi-conductor, and electricity but also mechanics and materials. There are unique characteristics in electrical engineering because the control, communications, image processing, and software engineering may not be so diversified compared with power electronics. Moreover, power electronics deals with high voltage and large current as the conventional electrical engineering is doing; as such, it is dangerous when performing experiments and development. Power electronics may be one of the most difficult engineering fields, on par with radio frequency engineering and fluid mechanics, from my experience. However, a power electronic circuit looks simple compared to a conventional analog filter or an electronic circuit. Actually, this apparently simple power electronic circuit makes it more difficult to analyze and design of it, which is the reason why many electric engineers who are now familiar with power electronics have trouble handling power electronic circuits. © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 C.T. Rim, Phasor Power Electronics, KAIST Research Series, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0536-7_1
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1 The Philosophy of Power Electronics
Fig. 1.1 Time-varying and AC characteristics of power electronics that give engineers a headache
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All Switching Converter Is Time-Varying, Which Makes Power Electronics so Unique and Difficult to Learn
Let me give you an example of analyzing a boost converter, as shown in Fig. 1.2, which is one of the most basic switching converters in power electronics. (The name, ‘boost’ stems from the fact that the output voltage of the boost converter is always higher than the input voltage.) What is the output voltage of the converter when the switch Qc is ideally turned o
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