Description
Over the years, power electronics has grown to an enormous area with huge activities and interests in terms of studies, research and applications. Power electronics devices and converters are now used from switching power supplies to dc transmission lines to electric vehicles. Power electronics is taught at many engineering schools at the undergraduate as well as at the graduate level. There are plenty of excellent textbooks available on the subject. However, there is a distinct shortage of textbooks on power electronics that can be used as a first course on power electronics.
Introduction to Power Electronics and Drives fills that void. This textbook is written to introduce the subject matter of power electronics and drives to undergraduate students in electrical engineering as a first course. The concepts have been discussed using the fundamentals of circuit analysis and electronics. Examples have been provided to assist students understand the concepts. The topics included in this book can be covered in a one semester undergraduate course. The readers are expected to have covered basic circuit theory, basic electronics and electrical machines before taking this course.
Chapter 1 presents voltage and current analyses in first and second order circuits with switching actions. These analyses became the building blocks for analyses of rectifiers and inverters presented in later chapters. Students who have already taken circuit analysis in their previous years may skip this Chapter. However, most students would be benefited by reviewing this Chapter.
Chapter 2 presents the physics and voltage-current characteristics of power electronic devices. Although in many applications power electronic devices can be considered as ideal to simplify the analyses, this chapter will provide students with the appreciation for power dissipation in these devices, an important consideration in power electronic design.
The working principles, analyses, techniques and concepts related to three-phase rectifiers, dc-to-dc and dc-to-ac converters and drives have been developed in this textbook (Chapters 3-10) in a gradual step by step manner keeping the ability and the skill sets of typical undergraduate students in mind. Design considerations presented in Chapter 11 have been developed in response to the design requirement of the accreditation bodies.
Materials presented in Chapters 3 to 11 can form the core of the first course on power electronics.