Triplen Harmonic Detector

Shrawani Bawage Parth Ambalkar Tejas Autkar

Department of Electronics and
Telecommunication
Sardar patel Institute of
Technology
Mumbai, India
shrawani.bawage@spit.ac.in
Department of Electronics and
Telecommunication
Sardar patel Institute of
Technology
Mumbai, India
parth.ambalkar@spit.ac.in
Department of Electronics and
Telecommunication
Sardar patel Institute of
Technology
Mumbai, India
tejas.autkar@spit.ac.in

Abstract—​ ​Triplen harmonics clamp meter is an
instrument that measures odd multiples of third
harmonics through neutral phase of three phases.If
our electrical equipments are not adequately
designed or rated then malfunctioning of
equipments will occur whenever 3rd harmonic are
present in an electrical system.Triplen harmonics
detector is used to determine when the original 50
Hertz frequency is split into multiple frequencies
due to irregularities in line.Triplen harmonic
detector is important for analyzing the quality of
power coming into a system for determining what is
causing problem.
Index Terms​—triplen harmonic detector,Band
pass filter,microcontroller(ucd3138),Distorted
waveform
provide this signal to a specially designed comb filter (
or multiple band pass filter) so that the frequencies
except the third one and odd multiples of it are not
disturbed. We get a band with its peak as the triplen
harmonics frequency. This signal is fed to the IC
AD736 which shows the RMS voltage of the signal.
Then we use 16 x 2 LCD screen to display the result.
The process is shown in the block diagram. (Fig I)
III. BLOCK DIAGRAM
The basic building blocks of our product are: level
shifter, ADC, ucd3138.

I. INTRODUCTION

The invention of non linear devices has been a boon to

mankind.But the increased use of non linear devices
leads to the formation of harmonics. Most of them are
not considered that harmful. But the triplen
harmonics(3rd odd multiples of third harmonic) are
considered harmful. They may cause fire hazards. For
` Fig 1 : Block Diagram
example if the fundamental frequency of a neutral is
50Hz, then triplen harmonics will be:
150Hz,450Hz,750Hz,etc. Our device uses a clamp IV. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE USED
(with fitted current transformer) to acquire the signals
from the neutral wire. After processing, the RMS ​ Below is the list of hardware used:
voltage of the harmonics can be seen on LCD display. 1. Texas Instrument’s ucd3138.
Index Terms : triplen harmonic detector, Band pass 2. LM741
filter,microcontroller(ucd3138) , Distorted waveform 3. AD736
4. Resistors
II. ​ OVERVIEW 5. Capacitors

​A clamp is used to acquire signal from the neutral Below is the list of softwares/tools used.
wire. This signal is provided to level shifter. ​We 1. Eagle
 2. Energia It calculates the RMS voltage. The output is displayed
3. Matlab on 16 X 2 LCD screen.

​ V. WORKING

The neutral wire is clamped using a clamp as shown

in figure 2.. The clamp has current transformer in it.
The ratio of Primary to Secondary windings is 1:5000.
So if the current flowing through neutral wire is 100A,
then at secondary end point, it becomes 20mA. A
resistor is connected across secondary terminals. The
final voltage is obtained between 0 to 10V(Vpp).

Fig 4: Schematic

FIG 2: CLAMP METER

Now the signal is given to a level shifter. The level Fig 5: AD736
shifter is designed so as to shift the voltage level to 0
to 3.3V. It is designed using Opamp (LM741),
resistors and capacitors. The circuit diagram is shown VI. ADVANTAGES
in fig 3.
Affordability : The existing market solution is The
current instrument available to measure third
harmonics is the power analyser which costs around
INR 3 lakhs. This power analyzer is a multi-function
power analyser device that measure precisely direct
current, alternating current, AC-voltage, DC-voltage
the intensity of DC or AC, phase rotation and idle,
apparent and effective power. There is no such device
available in market which is dedicated to measure just
third harmonics. Our device will be inexpensive, so it
can be applied on a larger scale to detect and thus
prevent the hazards that are caused due to Triplen
harmonics. This could be useful for all the utility
Fig 3 : Level Shifter
companies in the country.The product will be in the
form of a cheap,handy clamp meter to measure the rms
Now the shifted voltage is provided to the ADC pin of
values of the triplen harmonics.
ucd3138. The schematics of the board is shown in fig
Handy : Being a Clamp Meter, it just requires one to
4. ucd3138 has inbuilt ADC. Its input voltage range is
connect the AC mains to the device. The output will be
from 0 to 3,3 V. The signal is sampled and a digital
visible on the LCD display. A great assistance will be
comb filter is designed. The filter passes only triplen
provided to the user who can easily operate and handle
harmonics. The output is then given to AD736 (Fig 5.).
at once without any difficulty, therefore making it easy
to use without any tough instructions to follow.
VII. DISADVANTAGES
Condenser microphone used are complex than the
usual dynamic microphones. Hence the tend to be
easily affected by humidity and temperature. There are
chances that this effect can produce noise in the circuit
designed.
The frequency of soundwave is variable due to
inability of the microcontroller used i.e ATmega to
process the same.
Data sampling is limited because of the size of the
memory of the microcontroller. A huge data cannot be
samoled. This is one of the major disadvantage of the
product..
VIII. FUTURE SCOPE
Our product is the solution for a major industrial
problem. It is also cheap and handy. This makes it
better. It will help electrical distribution companies to
reduce their cost by defining fine for over production
of triplen harmonics by setting a limit on it. It will also
help to reduce fire risk. ‘IEEE standard 519-1992’ will
also be followed.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research has been completed under the guidance
of Dr. Y . S Rao, Dr. Rajendra Sawant and Prof
Lynette Pereira
​ X. CONCLUSION
In the paper we have discussed about an effective technique
to detect the triplen harmonics. We have designed an
affordable and handy device for the same.We have
described all the steps of the complete process.
REFERENCES
1. Ieeexplore.ieee.org. (1933). The
Triple-Harmonic Equivalent Circuit in
Three-Phase Power Transformer Banks -
IEEE Journals and Magazine.
2. Jaipreet Kaur Bhatti, Deepak Asati, (June
2012),
Harmonic Detection using Microcontroller,
International Journal of Computer Technology
and Electronics Engineering (IJCTEE)
Volume 2, Issue 3.