Modeling and Analysis of High-Frequency Leakage Currents Caused by Voltage-Source PWM Inverters

This paper deals with the high-frequency leakage current caused by a voltage-source PWM inverter. A nonnegligible amount of leakage current would flow through stray capacitors between stator windings and a motor frame due to a, large step change of the common-mode voltage produced by the PWM inverter. An equivalent circuit for the leakage current is proposed, which is expressed by a series resonant circuit. The analysis applying the equivalent circuit gives us such a conclusion that the connection of a common-mode choke in series between the inverter and motor terminal is not effective to reduce the rms and average value of the leakage current, but effective to reduce the peak value. Furthermore, this paper shows that the modeling and analysis are valid in designing a previously proposed suppression method of the leakage current.