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Power Electronics Laboratory Using Pspice

This document discusses using PSpice, a circuit simulation software, to simulate power electronics laboratory experiments. It provides two examples: 1) simulating a single-phase PWM inverter circuit, and 2) deriving a thyristor model from manufacturer data and simulating its turn-on characteristics. PSpice allows students to observe circuit behavior, perform design verification, and analyze performance without building physical circuits. This enhances understanding of circuit operation and control when dedicated laboratory facilities are not available.

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101 views4 pages

Power Electronics Laboratory Using Pspice

This document discusses using PSpice, a circuit simulation software, to simulate power electronics laboratory experiments. It provides two examples: 1) simulating a single-phase PWM inverter circuit, and 2) deriving a thyristor model from manufacturer data and simulating its turn-on characteristics. PSpice allows students to observe circuit behavior, perform design verification, and analyze performance without building physical circuits. This enhances understanding of circuit operation and control when dedicated laboratory facilities are not available.

Uploaded by

sivar22
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Power Electronics Laboratory Using PSpice

Muhanunad H. Rashid, and Samir A. Al-Biyat Department of Electrical Engineering King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals Dhahran 31261 Fax: 966 - 3 - 860 3535 Abstract:
This paper summarizes the usefulness of the circuit simulator PSpice in understanding the operation of power electronic circuit and the control function. It illustrates through examples the simulation of power electronic laboratory by using by PSpice. simulator to verify the design, and make necessary design modifications.

Single-Phase PWM Inverter


This is the first example to simulate the operation of a single-phase PWM inverter. It involves the techniques for generating control signals, the use of a DC pulse source to generate a triangular or square wave, and behavioral modeling in PSpice using VALUE and TABLE descriptions. A half-bridge inverter is shown in Fig. 1 which was drawn in PSpice using schematic editor. The inverter drives an RL-load of R = 10 W and L = 2.5 mH at an output frequency of fo = 1 kHz, and period To = 1 ms. For PWM control, the number of pulses per halfcycle is assumed 10. That is, the switching frequency fs = 10 kHz and switching period Ts = 100 ms. The carrier voltage vc of triangular wave is represented by a DC pulse wave of 50% duty chyle, 10 V (peak), ton = 50 ms, toff = 50 ms, and Ts = 100 ms. Assuming a modulation index of M = 0.7, the reference wave is represented as a sine wave of 0.7V (peak), and fo = 1 kHz. The sine wave generator is followed by an ABS value function whose is then compared with the carrier signal to give the error signal which is then multiplied by a limiter with a gain of 10 k.. The output of the limiter is then multiplied by a DC pulse vg1 of 50% duty cycle, 10 V (peak), ton = 0.5 ms, toff = 0.5 ms, and Ts = 1 ms to generate the gating signals for transistor Q1. The DC pulse vg2 is the inversion of vg1, and generate the gating signals for transistor Q2. It has a delay of tdelay = 0.5 ms, 50% duty cycle, 10 V (peak), ton = 0.5 ms, toff = 0.5 ms, and Ts = 1 ms. The functional block 'VALUE' is a voltage controlled voltage source and provides the isolation from the ground similar to a pulse transformer. The SPICE plots of Vg1, Vg2, Vref and Vc are shown in Fig. 2. The instantaneous load current and its rms value are shown in Fig. 3 which gives a peak load current of 0.685 A and an rms value of 332 mA.

Introduction
Power electronics is an application oriented and interdisciplinary course. It uses power semiconductor devices to perform switching action in order to achieve a desired conversion strategy. The switching slices the voltage and current waveforms into various intervals, whose beginning and end depend on the boundary conditions, which are fixed by the circuit parameters and/or control characteristics. The understanding of the operation of a power electronics circuit requires a clear knowledge of the transient behavior of current and voltage waveforms for each and every circuit element at every instant of time. These features make power electronics a difficult course for students to understand. A laboratory helps in understanding power electronics and its control interfacing circuits. The development of power electronics laboratory is relatively expensive compared to other courses in EE curriculum, and as a result power electronics laboratory facilities are available in few limited universities. However, the power electronics are playing a key role in industrial power control applications. Many universities are recognizing the importance of power electronics and offer it as a lecture course without any laboratory supports. The student version of PSpice, which is available free to students, is ideal for class-room use and for assignments requiring computer-aided simulation and analysis. Probe is like a theoretical oscilloscope and it can be used as a laboratory bench to view the waveforms of currents, voltages, power, power factor, etc. The capability of Probe along with other features to represent data in Table, Value, Function, Polynomial, Laplace, Param, Step makes PSpice versatile simulation tool for power electronic power courses. Students can design power versatile electronics circuits, use the PSpice

Figure 1, Single-phase half-bridge PWM inverter

Figure 2, Gating signals

Thyristor Characteristics
This is the second example in simulating the

characteristics of thyristor which is a commonly used device in introducing the concept of power electronics to students. It involves derivation of the approximate model parameters of the thysristor from the manufacturer's data and simulation of environment. The thyristor of International Rectifier, type IR18CF is used

Figure 3 PSpice plots of the instantaneous and rms load currents

Figure 4 Thyristor test circuit


as a test device as shown in Fig. 4. The model parameters are derived from the manufacturers data and the thyristor is modeled as voltage/current controlled switch [1]. A gate voltage of VG = 5.894 V is applied to the gate and the anode to cathode voltage is swept from 0 to 10 V in order to capture the turn-on point. This is repeated for VG = 5.898 and 5.91 V. The turn-on characteristics are shown in Fig. 5 which shows the sensitivity of VG on the turning point.

Figure 5 Thyristor turn -on characteristics

Conclusion
PSpice can be used to model and simulated power electronic circuits together with the gating control signals to obtain the desired conversion strategy. Schematic editor has many interfacing devices and components both analog and digital. Its graphical post-processor Probe is like a theoretical oscilloscope which allows plotting functional variables such as power, power factor, Fourier spectrum. Also, it can be used to find the rms, average, and peak voltage and current ratings of devices and components. Advanced feature such as PARAM allows find the effects of parameter variations on the performance of the power conversions and the WORST CASE analysis allows finding the worst-case due to tolerance in devices and components values. The students can observe the effects of changes in design parameters without actually building the circuit. This enhances their understanding of the circuit operation and the control function. In the absence of a dedicated power electronics laboratory, the laboratory assignments could be only problems, which are to be simulated and verified by PSpice. Examples of

laboratory experiments on power electronic are given by Rashid [2]. PSpice can be used for design verifications of power electronics circuits. Also for performance evaluation in terms of parameters such as power factor, and total harmonic factor.

References
1. Rashid, M.H, Power Electronics Laboratory Using Pspice. The IEEE Press, 1996, To be published. 2. Rashid. M. H., SPICE For Power Electronics and Electric Power. Prentice - Hall, 1993, Chapter 14 - Applications. 3 Rashid, M.H, SPICE For Circuits and Electronics Using PSpice . Prentice - Hall, 2nd Edition, 1995. 4. Rashid, M.H., Power Electronics - Circuits, Devices and Applications Power. Prentice - Hall, 2nd Edition, 1993.

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