Soft switching (ZVZCS) high current, low voltage modular power converter (13 kA, 16 V)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the next accelerator being constructed at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). The superconducting LHC particle accelerator requires high currents (13 kA) and relatively low voltages (16 V) for its magnets. This paper describes the development and the production of a (13 kA, 16 V) power converter. The converter is made with a modular concept with five current sources (3.25 kA, 16 V) in parallel. The 3.25 kA sources are built as plug-in modules: a diode rectifier on the AC mains, a zero voltage zero current switching (ZVZCS) inverter working at 25 k Hz and an output stage. The obtained performance is presented and discussed. (6 refs)