International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02

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Matlab/Simulink Models For Typical Soft Starting Means For A DC Motor

Maamar Taleb
University of Bahrain Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering P.O.Box 32038, ISA Town, Bahrain Email: maamar@eng.uob.bh

Abstract Three possible conventional means may usually be used to control or monitor the level of the armature current when starting a dc motor. The three possible means are: 1. Use of a gradually decreasing tapped resistance between the supply voltage and the motor armature circuit. 2. Use of a chopper circuit between the supply voltage and the motor armature circuit. 3. Use of a variable DC voltage source. Matlab/Simulink models of the three means are developed and presented in this article. The third mean seems to own certainly superiority when compared to the two first means. Keywords DC Motor Starter, Step-up Converter, AC/DC Converter, Matlab/Simulink Models.

I. INTRODUCTION It is well known that when starting a dc motor and that is by connecting its armature circuit directly to a DC voltage source, a high value of the armature current is expected. Such high value is primarily due to the lack of the back electromotive force (emf) of the motor. The back electromotive force is known to be proportional to the motor speed. The high value of the armature current may cause troubles to the DC motor ( like reduction of its life time, creation of false operation of the protective devices associated with the motor, etc). One of the classical remedies to such problem is to insert a starting resistor [1] in series with the motor armature circuit. The starting resistor should be gradually removed as the motor speeds up. A careful glance at such method is that even though there will be a control or monitor of the level of the armature current, there will be a waste of energy at each start-up maneuver. To overcome the last disadvantage, power electronics circuitry can be introduced. This is possible through the insertion of a chopper circuit [2]. The chopper circuit should be controlled by a hysterisis controller. The duty of the hysterisis controller is to monitor or keep the motor armature current between certain two pre-set threshold values. Unfortunately, the insertion of chopper circuit results in a new drawback which consists of creating ripples in the armature current.

Another alternative of starting the DC motor is to use a variable DC voltage source [2]. The level of source voltage should be minimum at start-up and should increase gradually as the motor speeds up. Increasing the level of the voltage source should be done automatically. This alternative is realized through the use of a controlled full wave rectifier (AC-DC converter). The position of firing angle of the rectifier should be decided by a closed loop controller. The input to the controller should be the motor speed. The job of the controller is to have a high value of firing angle at start-up and decreasing it gradually as the motor speeds up. The firing angle should reach and stick to zero value as the motor reaches steady state conditions. In this paper, all previous three means of start-up have been investigated and simulated. This has been done through the development of Matlab/Simulink [3] model for each mean. II. MOTOR MODEL AND PROBLEM DEFINITION Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of a DC shunt motor connected to a DC voltage supply. The field winding is usually represented by an inductance (Lf) in series with the rotor resistance (Rf). Similarly, the armature is usually represented by a back electromotive force (Ea) in series with the rotor winding resistance (Ra) and the winding self inductance (La). As it is known from any design textbox in electric machines like [4], field winding resistance (Rf) has usually a high value while armature winding resistance (Ra) has a small value.

Fig. 1 DC Shunt Motor

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International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02 The back electromotive force (Ea) is proportional to the flux () created by the stator winding and the motor speed (). Assuming, that there is a linear relationship between and the flux () and the field current (if), that is the saturation effect is neglected, the dynamic model that can be used to represent the shunt DC motor can be easily derived. It will be of the following form:
TABLE I MOTOR PARAMETERS

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Ra=0.6 La= 0.012 H

Rf=240 Lf= 120 H K= 0.0018 W/s

Kf = 1.8 web/A J= 1 kg.m2

di f dt

Vs R f if Lf Lf

(1)

k i dia Vs Ra ia f f dt La La La d K f i f ia Tl dt J J

(2)

(3)

Examining figure 2-a, it is seen that the armature current peaks nearly at 400 A value. The 400A value is about 25 times the armature current rated value. The peak value is encountered because of the low value of the armature resistance. The peak value is vulnerable to the armature circuitry and it can cause definitely motor insulation failure, in particular if the motor is subject to frequent start and stop maneuvers. Therefore, remedies to limit the peak of the armature current are usually used. Such remedies are discussed next. III. STARTING MEANS OF THE MOTOR A. Using Starting Resistance One way of limiting the armature current level is to insert a starting resistance in series with the armature circuit as shown in figure 3. The starting resistance should gradually be removed as the motor speeds-up. The times of moving from one tap to another tap are usually calculated from steady state analysis [3, 5]. The previous mean of start-up has been simulated in Matlab/Simulink. Figure B.1 in appendix B represents the Matlab/Simulink for such mean. The starting resistance was assumed to be of five parts. The parts were gradually short-circuited and that is by pretending the existence of a circuit breaker poles across each part terminals. Figure 4 shows the Matlab/Simulink block of the starting resistance.

The nomenclature of the different terms in this paper is provided in appendix A. Assuming that the applied load torque on the motor shaft is of the form TL k w and by connecting the motor terminals directly to full supply voltage, the expected waveforms of the armature current , the field current, and the motor speed are depicted in figure 2.
2

4 00 Ia (A)

2 00

(a )

0 0 1 If (A) 0.5

0.5

1 .5

2.5

3.5

4 .5

(b )

0 0 20 0 0 w (rpm)

0.5

1 .5

2.5

3.5

4 .5

10 0 0 (c) 0 0 0.5 1 1 .5 2 2.5 3 T e(s) im 3.5 4 4 .5 5

Fig. 3 Using Starting Resistance Means

Fig. 2 Motor State Variables Behavior. a) Armature Current , b) Field Current, Motor Speed

The motor parameters values used in this paper are provided in Table 1.
Fig. 4 Matlab/Simulink Block of the Starting Resistance.

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International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02 The results of the simulations are shown in figure 5. As it observed, the maximum value of the armature current did not exceed twice its rated value. The amount of energy that wasted in the starting resistor has been calculated separately and it was found to about 12 kjoules.

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The circuitry layout of this mean of control is shown in figure 6(a). The controlled switch of the chopper circuit is biased by an hysteresis controller. The hysteresis controller is programmed to guaranty an armature current waveform similar to the one shown in figure 6(b). Figure B.2 in appendix B, represents the Matlab/Simulink configuration of the chopper circuit control mean. The performance of such circuit is shown in figure 7.

3 0 Ia (A) 2 0 1 0 0 0

(a ) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0

3 0 2 0 1 0 0 0

1 If (A)

Ia (A)

(a ) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0

0 .5 (b ) 0 0

1 0

1 If (A)

10 50 10 00 50 0 0 0

0 .5 (b ) 0 0

w (rpm)

(c)

1 0

10 50
1 2 3 4 5 T e(s) im 6 7 8 9 1 0

Fig. 5 Results when Using Starting Resistance. a) Armature current b) Field current. c) Motor speed

w (rpm)

10 00 50 0 0 0 (c)

B. Using Starting Chopper Circuit The second possibility of controlling the armature current is to use a step-up converter. The step-up converter is usually attributed the name chopper in the literature.

5 T e(s) im

1 0

Fig. 7: Results when Using Chopper Circuit. a) Armature current b) Field current. c) Motor speed

(a)

As it can been seen, the chopper circuit did perform its duty as intended but that was at the expense of delaying the motor from reaching its steady state (rated value) in a short time. The motor reaches its rated speed at time = 8 seconds. The ratio between the maximum and rated values of the armature current is 1.23 but the armature current has a lot of ripples which might be harmful to the armature circuitry. C. Using Starting AC/DC Converter An indirect way of controlling the armature current is to have a variable DC voltage source. The level of the voltage source should be of minimum level at start-up and should increase gradually as the motor back electromotive force builds up. This is possible through the use of a controlled full wave rectifier similar to the one shown in figure 8. The MOSFET in figure 8 is controlled by the duration of the pulse generated

(b) Fig. 6 Using Chopper circuit Mean. a) Circuit Topology b) Hysteresis Controller Function

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International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02 by the comparator of the firing angle block diagram of figure 9 (a). Note that, such pulse is generated each half cycle.
(b) Fig. 9 Firing Angle Circuit. a) Block diagram b) Target block diagram signals

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Fig. 8: Using AC/DC Converter Mean.

The expected signals at the output of important blocks of figure 9(a) and for different two extreme speed values are shown in figure 9(b). The width of the generated comparator pulses are adjusted gradually. They should be of short duration at start-up conditions and of long duration at full or near rated motor speed. Figure 10 represents the developed Simulink block diagram of figure 9(a).

Fig. 10 Firing Angle Simulink Block Diagram.

Figure B.3 in appendix B represents the developed Matlab/Simulink model for this AC/DC converter. When running such a developed model, the following waveforms ( waveforms of figure 11) are obtained.
10 0

Ia (A)

5 0

(a )

0 0

1 0

(a)

If (A)

0 .5 (b ) 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0

10 50 10 00 50 0 0 0 (C )

w (rpm)

5 T e(s) im

1 0

Fig. 11 Results when Using AC/DC Converter. a) Armature current b) Field current. c) Motor speed

The peak value of the armature current did not exceed 3.4 times the rated value of the armature current and it has less ripples. The motor reaches its rated speed nearly at 5 seconds. IV. CONCLUSIONS Three conventional means are usually used in the control of the level of the armature current encountered at start-up

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International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02 conditions. These means are attributed in this paper the names: - starting resistance mean, - chopper circuit mean, and AC-DC converter mean. Development of Matlab/Simulink models for the previous means is the main contribution of this paper. Based on the simulation results of the developed models, the last mean seems to : - control the peak of the armature current to some extent - have less ripples in the motor armature current - avoid the waste of energy fact encountered usually in the case of using starting resistance. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] M. S. Sarma, Electric Machines: Steady-state Theory and Dynamic Performance, 2nd Edition, PWS publishing Company, Boston, 1996. M. H. Rashid, Power Electronics: Circuits, Devices, and Applications Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1988. Matlab Software, Version 6.5, The Math Works, Inc., 2002. J. J. Cathey, , Electric Machine: Analysis and Design Applying Matlab McGraw Hill Company, New York 2001. P. C. Sen, Principles of Electric Machines and Power Electronics, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 1989.
FAm

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Motor speed

Appendix B: Developed Matlab/Simulink Block Diagrams

Ia Te Math Function 1 Kw 0.00179 u2 w If

A+

F+

Out1

BIOGRAPHY Maamar Taleb received the B.Sc. degree in Electrotechnics from University of Sciences and Technology of Wahran, Algeria in 1983, the M.Sc. in Electric Power Engineering from Renssealaer Polytechnic New York, USA in 1986, and the Phd degree in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University New York, USA in 1990. Maamar Taleb had held a research associate position in Electrical Engineering at Clarkson University in the period of 1990-1992. In 1992, Maamar Taleb joined University of Bahrain. He is currently an associate professor in electrical engineering at University of Bahrain. Dr. Taleb research interests are: Power Quality issues, Power system modelling, and Renwable Energy Applications APPENDICES Appendix A: Nomenclature Ra La Rf Lf Kf J TL ia if Armature winding resistance Armature winding inductance Field winding resistance Field winding inductance Constant of proportionality between motor flux () and field current (if). Inertia of Motor Applied mechanical/ Load Torque Armature current Field current

In1

Fig. B.1 Starting Resistance Mean

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Ideal Switch S1 10 kohm DC Voltage Source

Starting Resistor Block

TL

DC_Motor

Demux

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International Journal of Electrical & Computer Sciences IJECS-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 02

Ia

30

If

Te Math Function

Demux

DC_Motor

Diode

F+

A+

Mosfet

TL

NOT

Relay

NOT

Timer

DC Voltage Source 10 kohm

Ideal Switch

Kw

0.00179

A-

F-

Fig. B.2 Chopper Circuit Mean

Fig. B.3 AC-DC Converter Mean

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