Power Electronics II

Lecture 5 - Part b

Prof. Dr. Mostafa I. Marei

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 Ac voltage control
If a thyristor switch is connected between ac supply and load, the
power flow can be controlled by varying the rms value of ac voltage
applied to the load.

This type of power electronics circuit is

known as ac voltage control.

Applications of ac voltage controllers are:

• Industrial heating,
• Lighting control,
• Soft starter of induction motors,
• On-load transformer tap changing,
• Heavy current rectifiers and static VAR compensator (SVC).
Two types of ac voltage control are normally used:
• On-off control
• phase-angle control
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In on-off control, thyristor switches connect the load to the ac source
for a few cycles of input voltage and then disconnect it for another
few cycles.
 In phase control, thyristor switches connect the load to the ac
source for a portion of each cycle of input voltage.
Principle of on-off control

The thyristor switch connects the ac

supply to load for n cycles; the switch
is turned off by a gate pulse inhibiting
for m cycles.
n and m are integral numbers  this
method is called “Integral Cycle
Control (ICC)”
The thyristors are turned on at the
zero-voltage crossing of ac input
voltage.
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This type of control is applied in Vs n m
applications that have a high
thermal time constant or high wt
mechanical inertia (e.g. industrial
heating and speed control of
Vo
motors ). io

wt
Practically, n+m < 100 cycles.
ig1 Gate pulse of T1
Due to zero-voltage and zero-
current switching of thyristors, wt

the harmonics generated by ig2 Gate pulse of T2

switching actions are reduced.

wt

For a sinusoidal input voltage,

The gate pulses for thyristor T1 and T2
v s  Vm sin t  2Vs sin t and the waveforms for input and output
voltages
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The rms output voltage can be found from:
1
 n 2  2
vo    2Vs sin t d t 
2 2

 2 ( n  m ) 0

n
vo  Vs  Vs k
mn
where k=n/(m+n) and is called the duty cycle. Vs is the rms phase voltage.

The input current is the same as the load current  The rms supply
current Is = the rms load current Ia .

The power factor at the supply side

=Load power / VA of the supply
I oVo Vo k  Vs
    k
I sVs Vs Vs
K   the power factor becomes very poor.

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Q1/Sheet 2: A single-phase ac voltage controller has a resistive load
of R=10Ω and the input voltage is Vs=120V, 60Hz. The thyristors are
switched on for n=25 cycles and are switched off for m=75 cycles.
Calculate: (a) the rms output voltage, (b) the input power factor, and (c)
the average and rms current of thyristors.

Solution
R  10  , Vs  120 V , Vm  2  120  169.7V ,
and k  n /( n  m)  25 / 100  0.25

n 25
a- v o  Vs k  Vs  120   60V
mn 100
And the rms load current is Io=Vo/R=60/10=6.0A.

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 b- The load power is Po= Io2 R = 6 2 ×10 = 360W.
The volt-ampere (VA) input: VA  Vs I s  Vs I o  120  6  720VA
P0 360
PF    k  0.25  0.5
VA 720

c- The peak thyristor current is Im=Vm /R=169.7/10=16.97 A.

The average current of thyristors is
n  Imn kI m 16.97
2 (m  n) 0
IA  I sin t d (t )     0.25  1.33 A
m
 ( m  n)  

The rms current of the thyristor is

1
 n  2  2
Im n I K 16.97
IR    m     m   0.25  4.24 A
2
I sin t d ( t ) 
 2 (m  n) 0  2 nm 2 2

V0 k Vs 1 Vm 1
I
Note: 0  I s    k  k Im
R R 2 R 2 k Im
2 2 IR 
I0  IR |T 1  I R|T 2  2 I R 2
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 Single-phase Bidirectional controllers with resistive loads

The RMS value of load voltage can be

varied by varying the trigger angle .

Due to the symmetrical nature of the input

supply current waveform there is no dc
component i.e., the average value of the
input supply current is zero.

During the positive half-cycle of input

voltage, the power flow is controlled by
varying the delay angle of thyristor T1; and
thyristor T2 controls the power flow during
the negative half-cycle of input voltage.

The firing pluses of T1 and T2 are kept

180o apart.
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 For a sinusoidal input voltage, v s  Vm sin t  2Vs sin t
2 
Vo 
2  2Vs2 sin 2 t d ( t )

1 sin 2
Vo  Vs (   )  0  Vo  Vs
 2

Power Factor

The average thyristor current is given by:

1  2Vs
2R 
IA  2Vs sin t d (t )  (cos   1)
2R
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In the single phase full wave ac voltage controller circuit using two
Thyristors T1 and T2 in parallel, the gating circuits (gate trigger pulse
generating circuits) of Thyristors T1 and T2 must be isolated.

It is possible to have a common cathode for T1 and T2 by adding two

diodes, as shown in the figure below.

Thyristor T1 and diode D1 conduct together during the positive half-

cycle; and thyristor T2 and diode D2 conduct the negative half-cycle.
Because T1 and T2 have a common Cathode, no isolation is
required between their driving circuits.
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 But due to the need of two power diodes, the cost of the devices
increase. As there are two power devices conducting at the same
time, the voltage drop across the ON devices increases and the ON
state conducting losses of devices increase and hence the efficiency
decreases.
A single-phase full-wave controller can also be implemented with
one thyristor and four diodes, as shown in the figure below.

The four diodes act as a bridge rectifier.

The voltage across the thyristor T1 and current through thyristor T1
are always unidirectional.
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 With a resistive load, the thyristor current would fall to zero due
to a natural commutation in every half-cycle as shown.

However, if there is a large inductance in the circuit, thyristor T1

may not be turned off in every half-cycle of input voltage, and this
may result in a loss of control due to commutation failure.

It would require detecting the zero crossing of the load current to
guarantee turn-off of the conducting thyristor before firing the next
one.

Three power devices conduct at the same time and the efficiency
is also reduced.

The bridge rectifier and thyristor (or transistor) act as a bidirectional

switch, which is commercially available as a single device.

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Q2/Sheet 2: A single-phase full-wave ac voltage controller has a
resistive load of R=10Ω and the rms input voltage is Vs=120V (rms),
60Hz. The delay angles of thyristors are α1 =π/2 and α2 =3π/2. Determine
(a) the rms output voltage, (b) the input power factor, and (c) the
average and rms currents of thyristors.
Solution
R  10  , Vs  120 V ,    / 2 ,Vm  2  120  169.7V ,
   
 sin  2   
a- Vo  Vs 1      sin 2   120 
1 
  
2   120
  84.85V
 2    2 2  2
 
 
b- The rms load current is Io=Vo /R=84.85/10=8.485A and the load
power is Po=Io2 × R = 8.4852 × 10 =719.95W. Because the input
current is the same as the load current, the input VA rating is

VA  Vs I s  Vs I o  120  8.485  1018.2VA

I o2 R I o2 R Vo 1 sin 2  1
The input PF =            0.707
Vs I s Vs I o Vs  2  2
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c- The average thyristor current
1 
IA 
2R 
2Vs sin t d ( t )

2Vs 120
IA  (cos   1 )  2  2.7 A
2R 2  10

The rms value of the thyristor current

1 
IR 
2R 2  2Vs2 sin 2 t d ( t )

Vs 1 sin 2  120
IR       6A
2R  2  2  10

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