Calorimetric Efficiency Determination of Power Electronic Variable Speed Drives

A calorimeter test bench for the efficiency and power loss determination of power electronic variable speed drives is presented. The balanced calorimetric setup with air as the cooling medium is proposed to test small electronic drives for AC motors in a power range from 1 kW up to 7,5 kW. The construction, the required measurement equipment, the measurement procedure and especially the measurement results and uncertainty are important aspects of this test bench and are discussed in this chapter. The device under test is a 2,2 kW drive which is measured using both the input–output method and the calorimetric method. The test results are compared and conclusions are made concerning usability, repeatability and accuracy of the test bench. The overall goal is to further examine and optimize the calorimetric approach and to be able to obtain more accurate and comparable test results of very high efficient frequency converters. This setup reaches an uncertainty of ±2,39% or ± 1,48 W on the power loss at full load and speed using the calorimetric method.