Pulsed load power supply with energy storage for aluminum spot welding

Abstract

A power supply design has been suggested and examined for high current, low duty-cycle pulsed loads, specifically — aluminum spot welding inverters. Through the use of energy storage the power supply design aims at an input current that is equally distributed through time, thus preventing grid connection over-dimensioning and avoiding transient stresses to the grid. A converter topology has been proposed for controlled charging and discharging of a capacitor bank. The performance has been verified through simulation using Matlab Simulink. A scaled prototype of the capacitor discharge converter has been assembled and tested. Experimental results show that high energy controlled capacitor discharging is possible with the chosen methods.