Reducing supply current harmonics

In this article, a simple and effective method for reducing the supply current harmonics has been proposed for a parallel connected 12-pulse thyristor converter with an interphase reactor. The proposed method requires only an interphase reactor with an optimal inductance value being much smaller than conventional inductance values, without any additional devices or components. The supply current waveform of the 12-pulse thyristor converter with the optimal interphase reactor is more sinusoidal than that of a 36-pulse thyristor converter. The proposed design concept of the interphase reactor has been discussed, and confirmed by using digital computer simulation. An experimental system has been constructed and tested, and the experimental results have verified the practicability and effectiveness. The authors conclude that the proposed concept provides a clean power utility interface for various industrial/utility applications including superconducting energy storage systems (SMES).