Simulation of Chopper-Controlled DC Motor Drives

The performance of chopper-controlled DC motor drives can be analyzed by carrying out

simulations using Simulink and SimPowerSystems.

The simulations using Simulink are similar to the simulation of phase-controlled DC motor drives
in the previous topic and will not be discussed any further.

Simulations using SimPowerSystems will be discussed in the following exercises.

Open-Loop Buck Converter DC Drive

A buck converter (or step-down DC chopper) is one of the most basic power electronic circuits.
When used in a DC drive it gives a one quadrant drive, thus it is of limited practical use, but it is
useful when learning the basics of Chopper controlled DC motor drives.

A buck converter drive is given in the attached file dcChopper_1_quad.slx.

The drive consists of a MOSFET based buck converter with an input voltage of 300 V, driving a DC
motor (a preset SimPowerSystems model) with a rated voltage of 240 V, rated power of 5 hp,
rated speed of 1750 rpm, and a rated field voltage of 150 V.

The model is shown in Figure 1 below. The drive is controlled as an open-loop control system,
meaning that the speed of the motor depends on the duty cycle. The duty cycle can be varied using
the block labelled “slider gain” from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 1. The mechanical input to
the motor is the load torque, which in Figure 1 has a value of 10 Nm.

Figure 1 One-quadrant chopper-controlled DC motor drive

1
The waveforms obtained from the drive are shown in Figure 2 for a duty cycle of 0.5 and Figure
3 for a duty cycle of 0.8. Note the difference in speed for the two duty cycles showing that the
speed is directly proportional to the duty cycle.

On your own, run the simulation for different value of duty cycle and load torque and observe
how the speed varies (with a higher load torque the speed decreases, and if you get a negative
speed it means the motor is overloaded and cannot run).

Figure 2 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque with a duty ratio of 0.5.

2
Figure 3 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque with a duty ratio of 0.8.

Let us observe what happens when the motor is started on no-load and the load is applied when
the motor is already running. The motor is started on no-load and a load of 30 Nm is applied at t
= 1 s. The results are shown in Figure 4. Note how the speed decreases and the armature current
and electrical torque increase when the load torque is applied.

3
Figure 4 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque when there is a change in load
torque

The following observations can be made about the open-loop drive:

 There is no current limiting in the control system as observed by the high armature current
when starting. In practice this is unacceptable because it would lead to damage of the MOSFET
due to the excessive current.
 The speed is determined by the duty cycle of the converter and the load torque, and thus
cannot be controlled accurately.
 Such a drive is not suitable in applications where accurate (or precise) speed control is
required. In such applications a closed-loop drive will be more suitable.

Closed-Loop Buck Converter DC Drive

A closed-loop DC drive has got two control-loops; the outer control loop is the speed control loop,
which regulates the motor speed while the inner control loop is the current control loop which
controls the armature current. Both control loops are implemented using PI controllers. For
details of PI controllers and PI controller tuning, please refer to the previous supplementary notes
on Phase-controlled DC motor drives.

4
A closed-loop 1-quadrant drive is implemented in SimPowerSystems. The drive consists of a buck
converter with an input voltage of 300 V feeding a DC motor with the following ratings: rated
voltage of 240 V, rated power of 5 hp, rated speed of 1750 rpm, and a rated field voltage of 150 V.

5
The model of the closed-loop drive is shown in Figure 5. (See attached model closedLoop_dcChopper_1_quad.slx)

Figure 5 Closed-loop 1 quadrant DC drive

6
The details of the speed controller are shown in Figure 6. The speed controller is of the discrete-
time (or digital) PI type. ZOH and ZOH1 are zero-order holds which convert the measured and
reference speed into digital signals. The ZOH represents the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC)
used in a practical drive. The controller gains are denoted by Kpw for the proportional gain and
Kiw for the integral gain and their values are Kpw = 1.5 and Kiw = 0.001. A current limiter limits
the current to 50 A. (Note that the current limiter value is not an arbitrary value but depends on
the ratings of the motor and the converter). The current limiter ensures that the armature current
will not go beyond the rated capacity of the converter, but it slows down the acceleration of the
motor when starting (remember, current is proportional to electrical torque, and the higher the
electrical torque the faster the acceleration will be). The output of the speed controller is the
reference armature current.

Figure 6 Speed controller

The details of the current controller are shown in Figure 7. The proportional gain and integral
gain are denoted as Kpi and Kii respectively. Their values are Kpi = 2 nd Kii = 1.

7
Figure 7 Current controller

The results for a reference current of 100 rad/s are shown in Figure 8. Note that the steady state
speed is 100 rad/s following the reference, and the armature current is limited to 50 A (though
with some spikes) during the start-up of the motor.

Figure 8 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque for closed-loop drive

8
The performance of the speed controller and the current controller can be determined from the
waveforms of the reference speed/current, the measured speed/current and the respective error
for each controller.

The waveforms for the speed controller are shown in Figure 9. Note how the measured speed
becomes equal to the reference speed after the starting transient and the error settles down at a
value of 0 (the desired error in any control system).

Figure 9 Speed controller waveforms

The current controller waveforms are shown in Figure 10. It can be seen that the measured
current follows the reference current, and the error is zero in steady state. The only drawback of
the controller is the spikes observed during start-up of the motor. The spikes can be reduced by
adding damping to the control system (outside the scope of this discussion).

Figure 10 Current controller waveforms

We can further investigate the dynamic performance of the drive in the following cases.

9
Case 1: When there is a change in speed reference from 90 rad/s to 180 rad/s. The waveforms for
this case are shown below.

The motor speed, armature current and electrical torque are shown in Figure 11. The speed
increases at t = 1s, while the current and torque correspondingly increase to facilitate the
acceleration of the motor. After the speed reaches its new steady state value, the armature current
and the torque reduce to the previous values. This is because the load torque on the motor has
not changed, therefore the electrical torque needed to drive the load is the same as it was before
(there will be a small increase due to the friction coefficient but it is negligible).

The waveforms for the speed controller are shown in Figure 12. The measured speed follows the
reference speed, and when the reference speed is increased, the measured speed also increases.
The measured speed cannot change instantaneously due to the inertia of the motor and the
attached load, and it increases at a rate determined by the electrical torque.

The waveforms for the current controller are shown in Figure 13. At the instance of motor starting
and increased speed reference, the current reference increases and is only limited by the current
limiter. This is because the motor needs more torque to accelerate up to the new reference speed.
Note how the measured current follows the reference current accurately at all times even when
the reference current changes very fast. This is because the current controller has got much faster
dynamics than the speed controller and when properly tuned is able to respond very fast to
changes in the reference current.

10
Figure 11 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque with a change in speed reference

Figure 12 Waveforms for the speed controller with increased reference speed

11
Figure 13 Waveforms for the current controller with increased speed reference

Case 2: When there is an increase in load torque from 15 Nm to 30 Nm with a reference speed of
150 rad/s.

The results are shown below.

The motor speed, armature current and electrical torque are shown in Figure 14. Observe how
the armature current and electrical torque increase when the load torque increases at t = 1 s.
However, the speed remains constant at 150 rad/s after a brief transient. The ability to maintain
a constant speed at different mechanical loads is one of the main advantages of a closed-loop
drive.

12
Figure 14 Motor speed, armature current and electrical torque with changing load torque

The performance of the speed controller is shown in Figure 15. This shows that the measured
speed follows the reference speed in steady state at different values of load torque.

The waveforms for the current controller are shown in Figure 16. When the load torque increases
the reference current increases and the measured current follows the reference current with an
error or zero.

Figure 15 Speed controller waveforms with changing load torque

13
Figure 16 Current controller waveforms with changing load torque

Thus, we can conclude that closed-loop drives are:

 Able to maintain the speed at the reference speed.

 Can be designed with a current limiter to protect the converter from over-current.
 Are suitable for applications requiring precise speed control.

14