Full-Bridge Modular Multilevel Converter for the Four-Quadrant Supply of High Power Magnets in Particle Accelerators

Many particle accelerators require to supply chains of magnets with high quality, high magnitude, cycling currents. To do this, the power converters need to provide high output voltages, reaching in some cases tens of kilovolts. Additionally, converters are required to store the magnet energy during de-magnitasion cycles. For such application, Full-bridge Modular Multilevel Converters (FB-MMC) could be used given their capacity to store energy, their inherent reliability and their good harmonic performance. This paper studies how this converter topology could be used for this application, proposing a method to recover and store the energy of the magnet using the converter submodules.