Power quality improvement in a four-phase switched reluctance motor drive using twelve-pulse AC/DC converter

This article deals with a 12-pulse AC/DC converter for improving power quality in a midpoint converter based switched reluctance motor drive at AC mains. The conventional six-pulse AC/DC converter fed midpoint converter based switched reluctance motor drive injects high content of current harmonics into AC mains. The proposed 12-pulse AC/DC converter with a small rating passive filter is capable of eliminating harmonic currents from light load to full load with a high power factor. The proposed switched reluctance motor drive system is designed, modeled and simulated in Matlab/Simulink environment and its performance is compared with a conventional six-pulse AC/DC converter fed switched reluctance motor to demonstrate the power quality at AC mains. The simulated performance of the proposed 12-pulse AC/DC converter fed switched reluctance motor drive is experimentally validated for power quality improvement