Active Front-End Converter

"Power Quality Improvement & Regenerative Unit"

Amtech Electronics Active Front End Converter

Active Front-end Converter is an IGBT based AC to DC converter. It keeps supply side power factor to unity and supply current sinusoidal. Our Axpert-i-Sine Series AFC is also capable of feeding back the excessive power from DC link capacitor to grid side and so it is also popularly known as Regenerative Unit. A single unit of high capacity can also be used for multiple VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) of low capacity having common DC bus configuration.

Six pulse diode rectifier bridge is a basic building block of many products such as UPS, battery chargers, VFDs, DC drives etc., known as non-linear loads. They generate about 70…120% current harmonic distortion at the input depending upon the source impedance.

AFC reduces current harmonic distortion level to <5%. It is a high quality product and easily meets the international power quality standards such as IEEE 519-2014.

  • Range : 45...2100 kVA
  • Voltage : 300...480 V, 500...690 V, 3-Phase, 50/60 Hz

Effects of power pollution

  • Over voltage / current in the distribution network.
  • Over heated power cables due to skin effect and copper and iron loss in transformers,motors and generators.
  • Over heating in all types of electronics systems causing component failures.
  • Nuisance tripping in circuit breakers and protection relays.
  • Malfunction of automatic control systems.
  • Damage to capacitors due to resonance.
  • Inaccuracy of instrument measurement.
  • Interference in telecommunications systems.
  • Voltage distortion and lagging power factor.

Mitigation of Harmonics

Wherever there is a 6-pulse rectifier at the input of variable frequency drive, UPS or there is a 6- pulse rectifier supplying the common DC link to which number of variable frequency drives are connected, the input harmonic distortion of current is from 40 to 100% depending upon the source impedance. Due to presence of harmonics the effective power factor (which is a product of displacement factor and distortion factor) is less (of the order of 0.8). If variable frequency drives has regenerative load like centrifuge or lift lot of power is dissipated in dynamic braking resistor across the DC link. Active Front-end converter (AFC) can take care of these three problems in totality due to its capacity to work in four quadrants.

  • It reduces the total harmonic distortion of input current to less than 5%.
  • It can improve the input power factor up to unity.
  • It can feed back the regenerative power to mains so that energy can be conserved.
  • Stabilizes the output D.C. voltage against mains and load fluctuations.

Amtech's Axpert-i-Sine Series Active Front-end Converter (AFC) offers all these advantages and can serve many applications such as:

  • Countermeasure for power source harmonic wave
  • Water & drainage works, cable car, lift, blower etc.
  • Power source regeneration
  • Kinds of tester, crane, elevator, centrifugal separator, line drives etc.
  • Common DC link converter
  • Kinds of line drive, rotary press of news papers etc.
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