EE491 Ex4; AC Motor Control, Wednesday group

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Objectives: 1. Test and study the open look control of AC motor. 2. Compare between the sine-wave and square-wave AC motor drive. 3. Determine the frequency response of AC motor with open-loop control.

Introduction: The main problem we encountered with the closed-loop control circuitry probably lies in the instability caused by many factors including how a pole of the system might jump to the Right-Hand-Plane causing the system to fall into unstable behavior. In this experiment we demonstrated an open-loop control of AC Motor using various components to be mentioned shortly, the main purpose is to get some sense of how the motor will respond to a certain range of frequencies. The circuit consists of the following components: we have the reference voltage and its a small signal, so we use a Voltage-Controlled-Oscillator to amplify the voltage one way or another, afterwards theres a pulse conditioner that acts as a means to weaken the noise. The output of this passes into a power stage for further enhancement, in order to enter it to the AC Motor that in turn gives a mechanical output in the form of RPM. We use sine-wave first then a square-wave to check the response of the system.

The AC Motor The AC motor consists of a permanent magnet rotor and two separate multi-pole windings (stator). The period and thus the frequency of rotation of the field will equal the frequency of the AC current in the coil. Per each cycle the AC current, the star shaped field rotates an angle of 360/n, where n is the number of pole pairs, in our case 12. The RPM of the motor equals 1/12th of the number of cycles per minute of the AC (i.e. 50 Hz AC = 50*60/12 = 250 RPM) The motor is designed to operate with an AC supply of 50 to 60 Hz, however it can work satisfactory in a wider frequency range centered around these values. The determination of this range (Frequency Response) will be one of the experimental tasks in this experiment.

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EE491 Ex4; AC Motor Control, Wednesday group

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We will be using two driving techniques: square wave, and sine wave.

Square-wave: The signal generator produces two low-voltage square waves with shift of 90 degrees from each other. The square waves are passed to the power-stage to raise the voltage level required for operation (almost 110v) by compact transformers. But the main disadvantage for the square wave driving is the very high percentage of power dissipated as heat and hence the square wave driving is acceptable in the case of small motors only.

Sine-wave: The signal generator produces two low-voltage which are 90 degrees shifted to each other at fixed amplitude and variable frequency. The signals are generated using Pulse Width Modulation techniques. After generation and filtering of the harmonics, the sine-waves are passed to the linear power amplifiers with step-up transformers.

The motor is designed to work with nominal frequency of 50-60 Hz, but it works satisfactory with a wider range, say 30-100 Hz).

-We use the optical encoder just like in the previous experiment to measure the RPM speed directly.

Practical Measurement: A. Square-wave driving Vin (volt) VCO1

(Voltage-controlledoscillator)

Frequency-1

RPM-1 (Frequency-1 * 7.5)

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EE491 Ex4; AC Motor Control, Wednesday group

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1.516 99.8 25 187.5 2.645 160 20 150 3.558 324.3 26.8 201 4.63 517.9 16 120 4.8 550 46 337.5 5.22 614 51.5 386.25 5.5 664.9 257.8 then to zero* 7.1 922.5 128.4 then to zero* * 8 1.054k 0* * 10.3 1.22k 502 then to zero* * * the values for the Vin in the range of 5 to 10 give zero frequency but it appears as a value in the frequency analyzer first. Then it goes to zero with no movement only vibration in the motor. Observation: the motor operates only in a certain range of frequencies, but in others it keeps on vibrating without any apparent movement as an output. The range might have been in the range of 20s to the beginning of 50s frequency-wise for the square-wave driving.

B. Sine-wave driving

Vin (v)

VCO2
(Voltage-controlledoscillator)

Frequency-2

RPM (Frequency-2*7.5)

1.516 99.5 10~32 Hz 75 to 240 2.645 165 10~35 Hz 75 to 262.5 3.558 322 25.7 191.25 4.63 516 43.9 329.25 4.8 550 45 337.5 5 590 49.8~50.9 371.25 5.5 665 54.5 range to zero* * 6.04 753.8 122.3 to zero* * 7.1 924 199.5 to zero* * 8 1.06k 427 to zero* * 9 1.196k 168 to zero* * 10.3 1.222k 109.9 to zero * * there are values that are indicated to give a value then decay to zero due to the response of the system, it only takes a brief time to reach a complete stop. The vibrations are noticed as those in the square-wave driving. Observation: The values at which the sine-wave operates is not much different from this in the square-wave. Only a small deviation in the values that I did not find a suitable explanation for, perhaps the-

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EE491 Ex4; AC Motor Control, Wednesday group

93671

values from the square-wave driving appeared to be much more stable than those in the sinwave driving. Discussion questions: Q1. Explain why the AC motor has a limited range of frequency that can be operated within? A: Due to the frequency response of the system. And the components and how they react to this range of frequency. According to the Electric Diagram attached with the experiment sheet it is obvious that the response of the system depends on a range of frequencies and that a resonance is ought to occur.

Q2. Draw the block diagram of the AC control system

Q3: How could you improve the control of the AC motor? A: Closed-loop allows further control, but I think if the question restricts me to open-loop control only Id say that we take mild care in determining the frequency response and the range of frequencies giving stable response without unpredictable oscillations ruining the operation. Also it seemed to me that operating with a driving square-wave gave a more stable response, than that in the sine-wave driving of operation. Could it be only due to the nature of the two signals and not related to the operation of the control system

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