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Using MathCad in Understanding the Induction Motor Characteristics

Khalid A. Nigim, Member, IEEE, and Ronald R. DeLyser, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractComputer-aided multimedia education is increasingly popular within the classroom and laboratory. The applications of market-ready mathematical and database programming software for teaching engineering course outline is well appreciated. This article shows how MathCad can be used to introduce electrical machine characteristics simulated at different possible control modes. The undergraduate students require minimum knowledge of a programming language. The examples presented in the article show how MathCad software can be used to simplify some of the characteristics of the three-phase and one-phase induction machine. The result of introducing math software as a teaching tool at the third- and fourth-year level have been accepted and are now used as part of the practical sessions for the electrical machine and other credited courses at Birzeit University, West Bank and Gaza in the Palestine. Index TermsComputer application in education, electric machines, MathCad application.

Fig. 1. The electronic handbook main menu designed with MS-Access tool.

II. MATH SOFTWARE AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL FOR ELECTRIC MACHINE CASES The early versions of software to simulate motor performance are presented in references [4][6]. The work introduces the basics of teaching electric machines using programmable routines and was dedicated to a few aspects of the phenomena of electric machines using the DOS environment and interactive graphics software. In early 1994, the electrical engineering department at Birzeit University used MathCad in the teaching classrooms and PC laboratory on a trial basis in order to enhance interactive teaching and learning. Equation solution of the electrical motor and drives performance is straightforward once the basic features of MathCad software are learned [7]. Of course, MathCad software is widely used for many scientific and engineering principles and is not the only package available [8], [9]. It is easy to use and has many built-in functions that facilitate its use in many textbook applications. The next sections will demonstrate the versatility of adopting MathCad in evaluating the characteristics of three-phase and one-phase induction motors under variable input conditions. Study cases 1 and 2 present the steady state characteristics of the threephase induction motor under varying input conditions, while case 3 presents the one-phase motor characteristics. The examples were presented to and accessed by the student through the creation of an interactive electronic handbook page created by MS Access software as seen in Figs. 1 and 2. The multiplechoice menu given to the student is used to navigate through solved examples as the syllabus developed. A. The Presentation of the Electric Motor Characteristics by MathCad In electrical motors, the electrical energy input and the mechanical energy output can be presented in mathematical form, after presenting the physical operation of the motor with the equivalent electric circuit shown in Fig. 3. The electric circuit

I. INTRODUCTION URRENT mathematics software packages are equipped with highly interactive displays, signal processing, prototyping, threedimensional (3-D) plots, graphs, word processing and data layering to enable rapid interpretation and presentation of results and trends. The direct use of this type of software is a major advancement in simplifying simulation procedures for many practicing engineers as well as for undergraduate engineering students [1][3]. The integration of the motor and electronics to adjust the inherent motor characteristics make it difficult for the tutor to simplify and present the subject to undergraduates without the assistance of some kind of simulation tools. A successful simulation tool requires time, energy, and skills in computing languages and general knowledge of the operational characteristics of the electrical machine and its performance. To keep sustainable interest in the education process and with many students enrolling in colleges with some computer literacy, it is essential to reinforce the engineering education curriculum with computer-aided teaching tools that are interactive as well as educational. For these reasons a mathematical package was introduced to initiate the changes in teaching methodology at the authors engineering college.

Manuscript received October 20, 1999; revised October 31, 2000. K. A. Nigim is with Birzeit University, Electrical Engineering Department, Birzeit, Palestine (e-mail: kldngm@excite.com). R. R. DeLyser is with the Department of Natural Science, Mathematics and Engineering, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80210 USA(e-mail: rdelyzer@du.com). Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9359(01)01769-1.

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Fig. 2.

MathCad induction motor solved examples menu.

Fig. 3. The three-phase induction motor equivalent circuit.

is used to facilitate the calculation of the current once the values of the resistive and inductive motor windings components are given at the base frequency and supply voltage. The values could be evaluated experimentally by conducting the running light (no-load) and locked rotor tests on the motor if that is possible; otherwise, the manufacturer should be contacted for the information. The power flow, shown in Fig. 4, within the motor is tracked by balancing the input and the output taking into account the heat and magnetic power losses. The losses are quantified by performing several standard tests on the motor. The current flowing in the motor can be calculated using the equivalent circuit representing the motor physical elements. The steady-state developed torque and power that are a function of the motor current and speed are then evaluated and plotted to reveal the motor characteristics. The expected efficiency of those particular parameters can also be plotted. Almost every textbook presents the induction motor by its per phase equivalent circuit and shows how steady-state current and power are estimated. In many cases, the iron and mechanical losses are ignored to simplify the procedures. In many textbook examples, the induction motor current can be estimated with fairly acceptable accuracy using the above methodology. Example 1 (shown in the Appendix) presents the standard steps to determine the current, the developed torque and power using the equivalent circuit for squirrel-cage induction motor.

Fig. 4. The three-phase induction motor power flow diagram.

B. The Student Interaction with the Software At the beginning of the electric machine course, the student receives a hand out showing the key features of the software and how the MathCad main built-in features work with the course material. The practicality of using MathCad software instead of using the handheld calculator for the student is that it will be possible to input various configurations of variables without any programming knowledge. The use of the built-in functions of MathCad in an interactive and easy way to generate the complete motor characteristics over the entire speed range rather than one operating point will be more informative for the student. This is one of the advantages over the numerical examples normally presented in the textbook. Therefore, the student can verify all the possible operating points along the motor characteristics. The examples stored for the student in the electronic handbook database of the course generate complete characteris-

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Fig. 5.

Case 1. Studies of the effect of drop in the supply voltage by 20%.

Fig. 7. Case 3. A look at the effect of maintaining constant magnetic field by maintaining constant voltage to frequency ratio v=f k for permanent split capacitor-start capacitor-run, one-phase induciton motor.

Fig. 6. Case 2. A look at the effect of maintaining constant magnetic field by maintaining constant voltage to frequency ratio v=f k .

as shown in Example 1. The second step is to verify numerically the solution by comparison with the textbook result. The numerical values of the calculated variables can be checked using the MathCad built-in calculator. It is possible to generate a number of plots representing different operating conditions such as the variations of voltage and frequency by using cut and paste of the main keyed-in variables and data. The copied section is pasted on to an empty area in the document as many times as required and each time a new subscript for the variables have to be labeled. For the tutor, the example should be laid out in a way to be as close as possible to the text presented in the textbook so as to assist the student in following the solution procedures. Later on, the students will be capable of creating their own routines needed to represent the operating characteristics of the motor numerically and graphically in a short time without the need of any programming tool. Furthermore, the software can be used for verifying laboratory experiments after entering the laboratory motor data and the operating conditions using data import facilities incorporated in MathCad. The recorded test results for the laboratory machines could be compared for further verification between theory and practice. III. SIMULATION CASES To investigate the motor characteristics under varying conditions the following cases were presented and included in the

tics over the whole speed range allowing the student to examine the shape and verify different operating points. To produce a family of curves on one plot only requires the keying in of variable definitions, data and the formulas acceptable to MathCad,

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electronic handbook as examples for the student to search in and alter the input conditions to examine the resulting effect (some parts of the examples cannot be modified using the

lock area facility). Only the graphical format is presented here as the variables and equations are based on Example 1 data.

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The three cases of this section (Cases 1 and 2 regarding the three-phase motor, and Case 3 for the single-phase induction motor). The three phase motor input current, developed torque, developed mechanical power and the efficiency for variable input conditions for the motor used in Example 1 are listed. The data and input conditions presented by the equivalent circuit (for the three-phase motor) were varied to investigate the motor characteristics under different possible control modes: Case 1, where the supply voltage is reduced by 20%. The Supply frequency is kept unchanged. The mode is known as the variable voltage constant frequency operation. The voltage is reduced either by resistance or autotransformer connected in series with the supply voltage. Recently phase controlled thyristors configurations have been used to vary the supply voltage instead of the autotransformer in many applications. In this method of speed control, the developed torque per ampere of input motor current is reduced as the stator voltage is reduced. Therefore, for constant load torque characteristics, the motor input current increases as the speed decrease, resulting in more copper losses (heat) and causes the motor insulation to deteriorate. This method is well suited for cubic torque-speed characteristics (such as air blowers and fans). Case 2, where both voltage and frequency was varied to maintain constant magnetic flux. The technique is well adopted in all ac drives to control the speed and torque of the induction motors. Since the motor is operated at a constant air gap flux (the motoring speed range below the synchronous speed), the torque per ampere is high permitting fast transient response of the drive system. An another advantage of this type of control is the capability of starting the motor at the maximum torque. It is also possible to drive the motor above the synchronous speed by reducing the voltage and increasing the frequency of what is known as flux weakening mode (constant power mode). Case 3, for the one-phase permanent split capacitor induction motor in which the supply voltage and frequency were maintained constant. The motor base supply voltage and frequency are 110 V at 60 Hz. The control technique is well adopted in all ac drives to control the speed and torque of the three-phase induction motor, but has constraints when applied to one-phase since the motor developed torque decreases below 50% of the speed due to the inherited one-phase motor characteristics [7]. IV. CONCLUSION MathCad is a good tool to introduce an easy way to evaluate the steady-state characteristics of the induction motor. The software has a high potential for the analysis of system performance and can be used in simulation techniques effectively. The use of the built in functions of the software in an interactive and easy way to generate the complete motor characteristics over the entire speed range rather than one operating point is more informative for the student. This is one of the advantages over

the numerical examples normally presented in the textbook. As computing languages are not essential, the undergraduate engineer can investigate the motor characteristics quickly and easily. APPENDIX The following shows the result of simulating the motor characteristics under normal operating conditions for full speed range. The text was copied from MathCad and inserted in this document using cut and paste through the Windows clipboard. The example solution procedures were sectionalized for clarity. The equations were presented in the format that normally appears in the textbooks. REFERENCES
[1] G. Bengu and W. Swart, A computer aided, total quality approach to manufacturing education in engineering, IEEE Trans. Educ., vol. 39, Aug. 1996. [2] K. Foster, Abstract math made practical, IEEE Spectrum, Nov. 1993. [3] G. Kaplan, Math, visualization and data acquisition, IEEE Spectrum, Nov. 1993. [4] R. Krishnan, A. Bharadwaj, and P. Materu, Computer aided design of electrical machine for variable speed applications, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 35, no. 4, Nov. 1988. [5] S. Linke, J. Torgeson, and J. Au, An interactive computer-graphics program to aid instruction in electric machinery, IEEE Comput. Applicat. Power, July 1989. [6] S. E. Zocholl, Motor Analysis for Protection Engineers, IEEE Comput. Applicat. Power, Oct. 1993. [7] K. A. Nigim, PC Based Single and Three Phase Induction Motor Drive Performance Simulation, in 7th Mediterranean Electrotech. Conf., Antalya, Turkey, Apr. 1994. [8] R. Delyzer, Using MathCad in electromagnetic education, IEEE Trans. Educ., vol. 39, pp. 198209, May 1996. [9] MathCad version 6 user manual.

Khalid A. Nigim (M85) was born in Gaza in 1955. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Zagazig University, Egypt, in 1979. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Leicester, U.K., in 1983. He has been an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Birzeit University, West Bank, since 1983. He was granted several honarary research grants in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. His research interests include induction motor speed controllers, solar and wind energy controllers, FACTS, and microcontrollers for the control of industrial equipment.

Ronald R. DeLyser (S74M75SM87) received the B.S. degree from the University of Florida, Gainesville, in 1974, the M.S. degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1978, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1991, all in electrical engineering. As a member of the United States Air Force between 1965 and 1986, held a teaching position at the United States Air Force Academy, served as a Development Engineer at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico and was the Requirements Officer for the Nellis AFB Ranges in Nevada. He is currently an Associate Professor of Engineering in the Engineering Department of the University of Denver, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. His research areas include pedagogy, outcomes bases assessment, the study of periodic gratings used as antennas and in antenna systems, high power microwave interactions with large complex cavities, anechoic chambers, and anechoic chamber absorbing materials.