SCR Protection

Some of the commonly used SCR Protection techniques against over voltage, over
current, di/dt, dv/dt, etc.
 Introduction
 Overvoltage
o Internal Over voltages
o External Over voltages
o Protection Against Over voltages
 Overcurrent
o Protection Against Overcurrent
 di/dt Protection of SCR
 dv/dt Protection of SCR
 Working of Snubber Circuit
Introduction
For satisfactory and reliable operation, the specified ratings of an SCR should not be
exceeded due to overload, voltage transients and other abnormal conditions. If the
ratings are exceeded, there is a chance of damage permanently to the SCR. Due to
the reverse recovery process during the turn OFF the SCR, the voltage overshoots
occur in the SCR.
Also, during turn ON, switching action produces over voltages in the presence of
inductance. In the event of a short circuit, a large current flows through the SCR which
is very larger than the rated current. Therefore, to avoid the undesirable effects on the
SCR due to these abnormal conditions, SCR must be provided with suitable protection
circuits.
Some of the protection techniques employed for an SCR include over voltage
protection, over current protection, dv/dt protection and di/dt protection. Also, to operate
the SCR in permissible temperature limits, heat produced at the junctions must be
dissipated. This can be accomplished by using heat sinks.

Overvoltage
Over voltages are the greatest causes of failure of SCRs. These transient over voltages
often lead to unscheduled turn ON of the SCR. Also, may lead to the permanent
destruction of the SCR if the reverse transient voltage is more than the VBR across the
SCR.
There are several causes of appearing these over voltages like commutation,
chopping, lightening etc. Depends on these sources, over voltages are divided into two
types internal and external over voltages.
Internal Over voltages
Internal over voltages arise while the SCR is in operation. During the turn OFF of an
SCR, a reverse current continues to flow through the SCR after the anode current
decreased to zero to sweep away the earlier stored charge. This reverse current decay
at a faster rate at the end of reverse recover interval.
Due to the inductance of the circuit, this high di/dt produces a high voltage. This voltage
value may be much higher than the rated value of the SCR and hence the SCR may
be damaged.
External Over voltages
These voltages are arise from the supply source or load. Some of these are
 If SCRs are in blocking mode in a converter circuit which is supplied with
transformer, a small magnetizing current flow through the primary of the
transformer. If the primary side switch is suddenly removed, a high voltage
transient is produced in the secondary of the transformer and hence it is applied
across the SCR. This voltage is several times that of the break over voltage of
the SCR.
 Lightning surges on the HVDC systems to which SCR converters are connected
causes a very high magnitude of over voltages.
 If the SCR converter circuit is connected to a high inductive load, the sudden
interruption of current generates a high voltage across the SCRs.
 If the switches are provided on DC side, a sudden operation of these switches
produces arc voltages. This also gives rise the over voltage across the SCR.
Protection Against Over voltages
To protect the SCR against the transient over voltages, a parallel R-C snubber network
is provided for each SCR in a converter circuit. This snubber network protects the SCR
against internal over voltages that are caused during the reverse recovery process.
After the SCR is turned OFF or commutated, the reverse recover current is diverted to
the snubber circuit which consists of energy storing elements.
The lightning and switching surges at the input side may damage the converter or the
transformer. And the effect of these voltages is minimised by using voltage clamping
devices across the SCR. Therefore, voltage clamping devices like metal oxide
varistors, selenium thyrector diodes and avalanche diode suppressors are most
commonly employed.
These devices have falling resistance characteristics with an increase in voltage.
Therefore, these devices provide a low resistance path across the SCR when a surge
voltage appears across the device. The figure below shows the protection of SCR
against over voltages using thyrector diode and snubber network.
Overcurrent
During the short circuit conditions, over current flows through the SCR. These short
circuits are either internal or external. The internal short circuits are caused by the
reasons like failure of SCRs to block forward or reverse voltages, misalignment of firing
pulses, short circuit of converter output terminals due to fault in connecting cables or
the load, etc. The external short circuits are caused by sustained overloads and short
circuit in the load.
In the event of a short circuit, the fault current depends on the source impedance. If the
source impedance is sufficient during the short circuit, then the fault current is limited
below the multi-cycle surge rating of the SCR. In case of AC circuits, the fault occurs
at the instant of peak voltages if the source resistance is neglected.
In case of DC circuits, fault current is limited by the source resistance. Therefore, the
fault current is very large if the source impedance is very low. The rapid rise of this
current increase the junction temperature and hence the SCR may get damaged.
Hence the fault must be cleared before occurrence of its first peak in other words fault
current must be interrupted before the current zero position.
Protection Against Overcurrent
The SCRs can be protected against the over currents using conventional over current
protection devices like ordinary fuses (HRC fuse, rewirable fuse, semiconductor fuse,
etc,), contractors, relays and circuit breakers. Generally, for continuous overloads and
surge currents of long duration, a circuit breaker is employed to protect the SCR due
to its long tripping time.
For an effective tripping of the circuit breaker, tripping time must be properly
coordinated with SCR rating. Also, the large surge currents with short duration (are also
called as sub-cycle surge currents) are limited by connecting the fast acting fuse in
series with an SCR.
So, the proper coordination of fusing time and the sub-cycle rating must be selected for
a reliable protection against over currents. Therefore, the proper coordination of fuse
and circuit breaker is essential with the rating of the SCR.
The selection of fuse for protecting the SCR must satisfy the following conditions.
 Fuse must be rated to carry the full load current continuously plus a marginal
overload current for a small period.
 I2t rating of the fuse must be less than the I2t rating of the SCR
 During arcing period, fuse voltage must be high in order to force down the current
value.
 After interrupting the current, fuse must withstand for any restricted voltage.
di/dt Protection of SCR
The anode current starts flowing through the SCR when it is turned ON by the
application of gate signal. This anode current takes some finite time to spread across
the junctions of an SCR. For a good working of SCR, this current must spread uniformly
over the surface of the junction.
If the rate of rise of anode current (di/dt) is high results a non-uniform spreading of
current over the junction. Due to the high current density, this further leads to form local
hot spots near the gate-cathode junction. This effect may damage the SCR due to
overheating. Hence, during turn ON process of SCR, the di/dt must be kept below the
specified limits.
To prevent the high rate of change of current, an inductor is connected in series with
thyristor. Typical SCR di/dt ratings are in range between 20- 500 ampere per
microseconds.
dv/dt Protection of SCR
When the SCR is forward biased, junctions J1 and J3 forward biased and junction J2
is reverse biased. This reverse biased junction J2 exhibits the characteristics of a
capacitor. Therefore, if the rate of forward voltage applied is very high across the SCR,
charging current flows through the junction J2 is high enough to turn ON the SCR even
without any gate signal.
This is called as dv/dt triggering of the SCR which is generally not employed as it is
false triggering process. Hence, the rate of rise of anode to cathode voltage, dv/dt must
be in specified limit to protect the SCR against false triggering. This can be achieved
by using RC snubber network across the SCR.
Working of Snubber Circuit
As we discussed above, the protection against high voltage reverse recovery transients
and dv/dt is achieved by using an RC snubber circuit. This snubber circuit consists of
a series combination of capacitor and resistor which is connected across the SCR. This
also consist an inductance in series with the SCR to prevent the high di/dt. The
resistance value is of few hundred ohms. The snubber network used for the protection
of SCR is shown below.

When the switch closed, a sudden voltage appears across the SCR which is bypassed
to the RC network. This is because the capacitor acts as a short circuit which reduces
the voltage across the SCR to zero. As the time increases, voltage across the capacitor
builds up at slow rate such that dv/dt across the capacitor is too small to turn ON the
SCR. Therefore, the dv/dt across the SCR and the capacitor is less than the maximum
dv/dt rating of the SCR.
Normally, the capacitor is charged to a voltage equal the maximum supply voltage
which is the forward blocking voltage of the SCR. If the SCR is turned ON, the capacitor
starts discharging which causes a high current to flow through the SCR.
This produces a high di/dt that leads to damage the SCR. And hence, to limit the high
di/dt and peak discharge current, a small resistance is placed in series with the
capacitor as shown in above. These snubber circuits can also be connected to any
switching circuit to limit the high surge or transient voltages.

Series and Parallel Operations of SCR

Thyristors are four layered devices, having a PN-PN structure. Like transistors,
thyristors are used as switches and they are considered as ideal switches.
There are some standard available ratings of thyristors. It is not necessary that we will
require only those standard rated thyristors. Maybe the need of the hour demands
some other value components providing different voltage and current ratings which are
not available?
For this purpose, we connect the thyristors in series or parallel configuration. Both of
the configurations along with their operation style will be discussed in this article.

Series operation of thyristors

As we know series configuration increases the voltage ratings while the current ratings
remain the same. Thyristors of same type do not have same I-V and off state
characteristics.

So the voltage drop across the thyristors would be unequal. To solve this issue
following parameters are set by default.
 Resistors are connected across each thyristor to avoid the unequal voltage
sharing.
 The values of the resistors should be selected, so the equivalent resistance of
thyristor and resistor would be same.
 To get best results we may use this formula to find out the value of resistor;
Now, the off state currents would be as shown in the figure:

High and steep trigger pulses must be used in order to make the firing of thyristors
simultaneously.

Parallel operation of thyristors

If the load current increases from the current rating of a single thyristor, then the parallel
configuration is used. The same problem arises here as well. Current is not shared
equally among the thyristors as the V-I characteristics are not similar.

Thermal Runaway
Power is dissipated by the thyristors which carry high current. This power dissipation
causes the junction temperature to increases, decreasing the internal resistance. This
can damage the thyristor which is termed as thermal runaway. Thermal runaway can
be avoided by following these steps:
 There should be a common heat sink, making sure that the thyristors operate at
similar temperature.
 Current sharing should be equal. For this resistors or inductors may be used in
series with the thyristors.
Static current sharing
Resistors are used in case of static current sharing. When resistances are used in
series, the losses may become high.

Dynamic current sharing

For dynamic current sharing, inductors are also used in addition to the resistors. In case
of inductors (magnetically coupled), if current through the thyristor T1 increases, an
opposite polarity voltage would be induced (as of series coil of T1) in the series coil of
thyristor T2. The current flow is increased through the thyristor, serving the purpose.
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