Power conversion device

1. A power conversion device, comprising:

a primary-side converter which comprises plural primary-side switching legs each connected between both electrodes of a primary-side capacitor and each including positive-side and negative-side semiconductor elements which are serially connected to each other and which are each provided with a snubber capacitor connected in parallel thereto, said primary-side converter performing power conversion between primary-side AC terminals each drawn out from an intermediate connection point of each of the primary-side switching legs, and the primary-side capacitor;

a secondary-side converter which comprises plural secondary-side switching legs each connected between both electrodes of a secondary-side capacitor and each including positive-side and negative-side semiconductor elements which are serially connected to each other, said secondary-side converter performing power conversion between secondary-side AC terminals each drawn out from an intermediate connection point of each of the secondary-side switching legs, and the secondary-side capacitor;

an inductance element connected between the primary-side AC terminals and the secondary-side AC terminals; and

a control device which controls turning on/off of semiconductor switching elements which constitute the respective positive-side and negative-side semiconductor elements, to thereby perform power transferring or receiving of DC power between the primary-side capacitor and the secondary-side capacitor;

wherein a capacitance of each snubber capacitor is set so that, at the time the primary-side converter executes a power-transferring operation, in that converter, a polarity of a current flowing through the AC terminals changes after completion of charging/discharging of each snubber capacitor due to changes in on/off states of the semiconductor elements;

wherein the control device controls said turning on/off, by setting a short-circuit prevention period Td for preventing short circuiting from occurring in each of the respective switching legs due to simultaneous turn-on operations of the positive-side and negative-side semiconductor switching elements commonly included therein, so as to achieve zero-voltage switching which causes each of these semiconductor switching elements to perform a turn-on operation at zero voltage;

wherein the short-circuit prevention period Td for the primary-side converter is set so as to prevent occurrence of short-circuiting of the snubber capacitor connected to the semiconductor switching element, due to the turn-on operation of that semiconductor switching element; and

wherein the short-circuit prevention period Td for either one of the primary-side and secondary-side converters is set to have a relationship with a current-polarity reversal time Tcmtt so that Td≤Tcmtt is satisfied, said current-polarity reversal time Tcmtt being a period of time, when that converter executes the power-transferring operation, from a start time of said short-circuit prevention period Td until a polarity of an AC current flowing through the inductance element is reversed.

2. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein, when either one of the primary-side and secondary-side converters, whose average operation time for said power-transferring is longer than its average operation time for said power-receiving, is referred to as a power-transferring side converter, the short-circuit prevention period Td for the power-transferring side converter satisfies Td≤Tcmtt.

3. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the inductance element is a transformer which includes a primary-side winding connected to the AC terminals of the primary-side converter and a secondary-side winding connected to the AC terminals of the secondary-side converter, and electrically insulates the primary-side converter and the secondary-side converter from each other.

4. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the inductance element is an inductance connected between the AC terminals of the primary-side converter and the AC terminals of the secondary-side converter.

5. The power conversion device of claim 2 , wherein, when either one of the primary-side and secondary-side converters, whose average operation time for said power-transferring is shorter than its average operation time for said power-receiving, is referred to as a power-receiving side converter,

the inductance element is a transformer which includes a primary-side winding connected to the AC terminals of the power-transferring side converter and a secondary-side winding connected to the AC terminals of the power-receiving side converter, and electrically insulates the power-transferring side converter and the power-receiving side converter from each other; and

the control device sets the short-circuit prevention period Td for the power-receiving side converter to be longer than the short-circuit prevention period Td for the power-transferring side converter.

6. The power conversion device of claim 5 , wherein the number of turns of the winding connected to the power-receiving side converter is larger than the number of turns of the winding connected to the power-transferring side converter.

7. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the current-polarity reversal time Tcmtt is set to a value calculated in a condition where the power subject to said power transferring or receiving is rated power of the power conversion device.

8. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the current-polarity reversal time Tcmtt is set to a value calculated in a condition where the power subject to said power transferring or receiving is 40 percent of rated power of the power conversion device.

9. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the short-circuit prevention period Td for the primary-side converter is set to have a relationship with a charging or discharging time Tc of the snubber capacitor so that Td≥Tc is satisfied.

10. The power conversion device of claim 9 , wherein the charging or discharging time Tc of the snubber capacitor is set to a value calculated in a condition where the power subject to said power transferring or receiving is rated power of the power conversion device.

11. The power conversion device of claim 9 , wherein the charging or discharging time Tc of the snubber capacitor is set to a value calculated in a condition where the power subject to said power transferring or receiving is 40 percent of rated power of the power conversion device.

12. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein each of these converters includes two said switching legs and is configured as a single-phase full bridge for performing power conversion between a DC voltage and a single-phase AC voltage.

13. The power conversion device of claim 1 , wherein each of these converters includes three said switching legs and is configured as a three-phase bridge for performing power conversion between a DC voltage and a three-phase AC voltage.

14. The power conversion device of claim 1 , which is provided with plural unit cells, each of said unit cells including the primary-side converter, the secondary-side converter and the inductance element, and the respective primary-side or secondary-side capacitors in said unit cells being serially connected to each other.

15. The power conversion device of claim 1 , which is provided with plural unit cells, each of said unit cells including the primary-side converter, the secondary-side converter and the inductance element, and the respective primary-side or secondary-side capacitors in said unit cells being connected in parallel to each other.