A PWM controlled variable damping resistor for protecting the power capacitor/passive power filter

A protection device for the power capacitor/passive power filter has been proposed. This device includes a control circuit, a conventional switch, a PWM switch and a resistor. The PWM switch is connected in parallel with a resistor to form a variable damper, serially connected to the power capacitor/passive power filter, in order to avoid the resonant amplification phenomenon. A conventional switch is used to switch on/off the power capacitor/passive power filter to the power distribution system. The control circuit calculates the voltage and the current of the power capacitor/passive power filter and compared to their upper tolerance values. The compared results are adapted to determine the duty ratio of PWM switch and the operation of conventional switch in order to protect the power capacitor/passive power filter circuit from the damage of over-voltage/over-current. Besides, this protection device can also improve the inrush current problem of the power capacitor/passive power filter at the instant of turning on. The performance of the proposed protection device has been verified by computer simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed PWM controlled variable damping resistor has the expected performance.