American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No.

2, 2014

Voltage Control by Microcontroller to Reduce Transformer Inrush

Current

Ali Asghar Fathollahi Fard

Faculty of Engineering, Multi Media University, Malaysia, [email protected]

Abstract.When a transformer is energized by the supply voltage, a high current called

transientinrush current which it may raise to ten times of the transformer full load current could
be drawn by the primary winding.This paper discusses a microcontroller circuit with the
intention of controlling and limiting the inrush current for a transformer by the method of
ramping up the supply voltage feeding to the transformer primary. Simulations and the
experimental results show a significant reduction of inrush current when the ramping up voltage
is applied to the three-phase transformer load. Inrush current could be almost eliminated if
choosing a correct switching step rate.

Keywords: Transformer inrush current; Zero-crossing on sine wave; Triac/SCR;

Microcontroller.

Introduction
Inrush current is a serious problem that plagues almost every electrical equipment and electrical
machineries, especially those which are inductive in nature such as transformers, switching
power supplies and synchronous/induction motors. In transformer study, a phenomenon which
engineers always encounter, amount of produced inrush current can be very large, many times
larger than the transformer full-load current rating. Inrush current can produce mechanical stress
to the transformer, damaging to transformer windings, it often affect the power system quality,
may disrupt the operation of sensitive electrical loads due to voltage dips, and also maloperation
cases of transformer protection relays sometimes happen. Therefore, it is a very serious that has
to be tackled by electrical engineers all over the world [1,2].

There are a few methods that are used to protect transformer against inrush current. Most of
these methods do not exactly eliminate inrush current but they reduce the current to a level which
is safe for the equipment. A well-known method is a passive method which is done by using
Negative Temperature Coefficient thermistors [3]. Controlled switching, and sequential phase
energization also are the other methods to eliminate the inrush current caused by the transformer
primary windings [4,5]. The simplified equation often used to calculate the peak value of the first
cycle of inrush current in Amps is as follows:

√
= [ ] (1)
√

Where:

155
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

V = Applied voltage involts, L = Air core inductance of the transformer windings inohms, BR =
Remnant flux density of the transformer core in Tesla, BS = Saturation flux density of the core
material in Tesla, BN = Normal rated flux density of the transformer core in Tesla [6]. As the
equation shows applied voltage V is an effective part of the formula and its magnitude will
change the amount of inrush current remarkably.

Voltage ramping up method to increase the transformer primary voltage gradually is suggested in
this paper. The gradually increase of supply voltage is injected to the transformer primary in few
cycles, until the full amount of the transformer rated voltage is connected. By the help of power
electronic components and amicrocontroller the method works in such that a percentage of the
supply voltage is firstly injected to the primary of transformer, then, the amount of the injected
voltage is gradually increased to the full voltage value after maximum of 20 cycles or 1000 msec
time period counted in 50 Hz supply. The microcontroller is assisted by a zero-crossing detecting
circuit to synchronise switching times, and sending pulses to the power electronic elements
thetriacs/SCRs, capable of switching on/off the main supply voltage to the transformer load.
Initial switching tests,and simulations by software NI Multisim have been successfully done to
help the experiment research. The suggested method is generally more expensive and is
complicated due to usage of active components.

This work implements an 8052-based microcontroller to trigger three power electronics elements
triacs/SCRsas switches to turn on a three-phase transformer. High voltage section of the three-
phase power supply is isolated from the low voltage microcontroller circuitry by optocouplers,
and a zero-crossing detector works in tandem with the microcontroller to synchronise the
switching of the triacs/SCRs so that the timing and triggering of the voltage ramping is
coordinated [7-8].The microcontrolleris entirely programmed in assembly with the MCS-51
Assembly Language [9]. Fig 1 shows the circuit of the microcontroller and the basic components
required for the work provided by NI Multisim 11.0 software.

Fig. 1:Microcontroller,optocouplers and triacs circuit

Initial testing and triggering

The zero-crossing detector circuit sends pulses for the positive and negative zero-crossings to the
microcontroller. The microcontroller then reads these pulses and it will wait for the last negative
zero-crossing and trigger the triacs on the next zero-crossing.

156
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

For the triggering of the three-phase supply voltage in this research work, a stage triggering
method is employed. The method is to start triggering triacs from the zero-crossings happen at
the angle of 90° on the waveform of the supply voltage or when the first cycle of the waveform
reaches its peak value. For this triggering method, step rates voltage of 5%, 10%, 20%, and 50%
are applied. Table 1 refers information on triggering on the voltage sine wave, and fig 2 shows
the results of NI Multisim 11.0 simulation on starting angle of 90° for single phase switching.

Table 1: Summary of triggering

Triggering at 90° of voltage wave

Step-rate (%) 5 10 20 50
No. of cycles to
20 10 5 2
full voltage

Fig.2: Starting angle of 90° for single phase switching

For the 50 Hz supply voltage, one full cycle of the ac waveform takes 20ms to be completed.
Initially, the first phase of three-phase (A-phase) is triggered by a certain time delay according
the step-rate chosen. A 50% step-rate has a time delay of 10ms after the zero-crossing is
detected. This 10ms time delay is generated in the assembly programming by using loops, which
is a conventional but an effective way of generating a time delay. For the second phase (B-
phase), an interrupt timer is being set to count an interval of 6.667 ms after each triggering of the
first phase, as the second phase lags the first phase by 120° and it translates into 6.667ms of real
time to reach its peak point. For the third phase (C-phase), the similar method is used to trigger
the supply voltage but this time a different interrupt timer is being utilised.The output voltages
for all the step rates were observed to the switching pulses from the microcontroller to insure
accurate switching control of stepping ramping voltage for the three-phase transformer before
actual experiments of the inrush currents effects.

Inrush current tests on transformers

Inrush current tests were conducted with three single-phase 1- kVA transformers which were
connected in star in the primary. The inrush current effect tests firstly were conducted with
direct-on-line connection to the supply. This should serve as the initial value to compare with the
resulting inrush currents with the use the stepping ramping voltage control afterwards. A lot of
trials were done in order to get the highest possible inrush current resulted from the energization
of the transformers at 0° of the supply voltage sine wave,and existence of the maximum value of
initial core fluxeswhich is counted as the worst case of producing inrush current in the
transformer [10].

157
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

The highest inrush current for the primary wye connected three-phase transformer 3x1 kVA
rating was obtained to be 86A as shown in fig 3, and the steady state current of this transformer
was found to be around 2A as it is shown in fig 4.

86 A

Fig. 3: Highest recorded of inrush current for 3x1 kVA transformers

2A

Fig.4: The value of steady state current for 3x1 kVA transformers

In the next step of the work, using the microcontroller ramping voltage circuit in order to reduce
the magnitude of inrush current, after series of tests were done, the followings are the results
captured by the digital oscilloscope.For the step starting angle of 90° on voltage sine wave and
5% step rateof ramping up voltage shown in fig 5, inrush current was found to be peaking at
70.4A highest. No significant inrush current suppression was observed from the inrush current
previous value of 86A.

70.4 A

158
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

Fig.5: Inrush current for 90° and 5% switching

For the step starting angle of 90° on voltage sine wave and 20% step rate of ramping up voltage,
inrush current was found to be dropped to 18.8A highest. A significant suppression of inrush
current was observed from the inrush current previous value of 86A to lower value of 18.8A
shown in fig 6.

18.8 A

Fig.6: Inrush current for 90° and 20% switching

Lastly, as shown in fig 7 for the step starting angle of 90° on voltage sine wave and 50% step
rate of ramping up voltage,the amount of inrush current also has been dropped to 8.4 A.

8.4 A

Fig 7: Inrush current for 180° and 50% switching

Findings and discussions

At a glance, it seemed that the controlled triggering through voltage ramping up technique is able
to reduce the inrush current of a three-phase transformer load up to certain extent. However, the
reduction in the inrush current was not so significant until at least 20% step rate in 90° angle on
voltage sine wave. The control value of inrush current obtained was peaking at 86A after many
trials were done. Basing with the 86A inrush current, a direct comparison was made with the
results which were written in Table-2.

159
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

Table 2: Reduction in inrush current with controlled triggering through ramping up voltage
method
(Initial record of maximum inrush current was 86 A)

Energization at 90° of voltage sine wave

Step rate (%) 5 10 20 50
Peak inrush
70.4 67.2 18.8 9.2
current (A)

Conclusion
The method of switching three-phase ramping up voltage is achievable by use of a
microcontroller, and some standard electronics components such as triac/SCR, optocoupler and
zero-crossing detector IC.
For transformers loads, the switching three-phase ramping up voltage can limit inrush current
when the step rate is kept relatively high, that is a rate equal or larger than 20%. Though the
circuit has not been tested on an AC motor, another type of inductive load, it is believed that
switching three-phase ramping voltage can effectively start a ac motor as a soft starter. This is
due to the fact that voltage is gradually increased until very low starting current for the motor is
observed.The circuit is deemed successful for the fact that the switching of a three-phase voltage
ramping is possible with the help of a microcontroller. In addition, the switching of the voltage
supply can effectively limit inrush current when there is no failure in triggering.

References
[1] Tony Kuphaldt, Inrush current, Lessons in electric circuits, online:
http://www.opampelectronics.com/tutorials, 2002.

[2] Ametherm Inc. Surge current causes and prevention, online:

http://www.ametherm.com/inrush-current/surge-current-causes-and-prevention.html,2010.

[3] Ametherm Circuit protection thermistors, Negative temperature coefficient (NTC) or

Thermister, online: www.ametherm.com.

[4] Brunke, J.H.; Frohlich, K.J., Elimination of transformer inrush currents by controlled
switching I. Theoretical considerations, Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on , vol.16, no.2,
pp.276-280, Apr 2001.

[5] Yu Cui, Sami G. Abdulsalam, Shiuming Chen, and WilsunXu, A Sequential Phase
Energization Technique for Transformer Inrush Current Reduction— Part I: Simulation and
Experimental Results, IEEE Transactions on power delivery, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2005.

[6] FahrudinMekic ABB-Allentown-PA, RamsisGirgis ABB-St. Louis-MO, ZoranGajic

ABB- Vasteras-Sweden, and Ed teNyenhuis ABB-Brampton-Canada, Power Transformer

160
American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014

Characteristics and Their Effect on Protective Relays, 33rd Western Protective Relay Conference,
17-19 Oct. 2006.

[7] B. Somanathan Nair and S. R. Deepa, ‘The Triode AC Switch (Triac),” in Solid State
Devices. New Delhi, India: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., ch. 11, pp. 299, 2010.

[8] Triacanalog control circuits for inductive loads, AN308 Application note,
STMicroelectronics, online: www.st.com.

[9] AT89S52 8-bit Microcontroller with 8K Bytes In-System Programmable Flash, Atmel
Corp., online:http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc1919.pdf.

[10] F. Fard Ali Asghar, and K. P. Basu, A new design for point on wave switching with
microcontroller to minimize transformer inrush current, International Conference: Electrical
Energy and Industrial Electronic Systems EEIES2009, Penang Malaysia, 7-8 Dec 2009.

161