eGaN Fet Based Integrated 3 Phase Brushless DC Motor Drive

Tzu Heng Hwang, Purdue University

Abstract

The basis of this thesis is to study the effiiency performance of the brushless DC motor drive by implementing gallium nitride (GaN) power transistor and motor drive integration technique, and construction and assembling of GaN motor drive. Electric motor systems consume about sixty percent of United States industrial electricity while utilizing outdated power transistors such as IGBT and MOSFET, and often set up with long connection wires. Theoretically, GaN power transistor has proved to be an improvement over the metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) in size, speed and turn-on resistance. Motor drive integration, reducing the length of connection wires, improves the effiiency by reducing parasitic capacitance and voltage overshoot occurs from the long wire between motor and motor drive. This thesis examined the differences in effiiency performance between MOSFET and GaN in brushless DC motor drive, and effiiency difference between GaN based integrated motor drive and non-integrated motor drive. This thesis research required the construction and assembling of the brushless DC motor drive utilizing EPC eGaN FET as the power transistor. The result showed that GaN is an improvement over MOSFET in brushless DC motor drive by more than 10% while integration of motor drive does not show consistency in effiiency performance. In conclusion, the GaN based power transistor has the potential to open a new market section for the motor drive manufactures due to its ability to greatly reduce the power consumption of electric motor system in the industry.

Degree

M.S.

Advisors

Kulatunga, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Mechanical engineering

COinS