2013 International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, Oct.

26-29, 2013, Busan, Korea

Soft Starting Method for Single-Phase PWM AC Chopper Fed Three-Phase

Induction Motor

Chavaporn Bumroongphuck*, Veera Thanyaphirak and Vijit Kinnares

Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Bangkok Thailand
E-mail: chavaponb@gmail.com

Abstract—This paper presents a soft starting method for a Fig. 1. When operating with a single-phase supply, it needs an
three phase induction motor operating from a single-phase external capacitor (Cap). The motor ratings are 2 Hp , 50 Hz, 4
PWM AC chopper in order to reduce high starting current 220/380 V, 6/3 A, delta/star connected. The external
caused by direct on line (DOL) starting. The MATLAB/Simulink
is used for simulation. The motor stator windings are connected
capacitance is 40 μF. This value was considered from the
in a delta form with an external capacitor for operating from a mathematical equations illustrated in [5].
single phase supply. With the proposed method, the initial
voltage and ramping of voltage with a desired rate can be
adjusted in order to obtain appropriate starting time and starting
torque. The results of the simulation show that the motor starting
current can be reduced and the capacitor value affects the
starting time.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1 The schematic connection diagram of the motor

S ingle-phase induction motors ( SPIMs) play an important

role in the countryside or in households for low power
applications. They become uneconomical for ratings above
B. Analysis
The three-phase induction motor normally operates in a
balanced three-phase sinusoidal steady-state mode. For this
about 0.5kW [1]. If there is a three-phase supply is
work, the stator windings of the motor are connected to single-
unavailable, standard three-phase induction motors can phase supply in conjunction with the external capacitor. As a
operate with single-phase supply by connecting external result, voltages(Va,Vb and Vc) across in each coil are unequal
capacitor. Generally, starting current of a three-phase supplied as shown Fig.2 as three unbalanced phasor representatives.
from balanced three-phase supply is about 500%-700% of the
rated current. As a consequence, it may cause an electrical
problem like a voltage drop or it may cause a mechanical
problem with the driven load. The AC line-commutated
phase-angle control with thyristor technology has been
widely in a soft starting method. Unfortunately the motor
Fig. 2 Three unbalanced phasors
suffers from harmonics in both voltage and current. Also
power factor is low and varies with motor speed. A PWM AC Hence the three unbalanced phasors can be obtained from the
chopper using forcing commutation devices can improve summation of positive sequence component, negative
performance and overcome those problems. [1-3]. However sequence component and zero sequence component as shown
there are a few works to investigate soft starting methods for in Fig.3.
the three-phase induction operating from the single-phase
PWM AC chopper.
In this paper, a simple configuration of the PWM AC
chopper is proposed which offers the advantages in terms of
ease of control and no need of synchronization with the AC
supply. The simulation of the proposed technique has been
performed by using MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation
results are given in terms of instantaneous torque, average
torque, speed, starting current and energy consumption during Fig. 3 The symmetrical components to obtain three unbalanced components
start-up under various rates of ramping of applied voltages. Where

II. Circuit Description V , Vb+ , Vc+ = the positive sequence components of Va , Vb , Vc

a
+

Va− , Vb− , Vc− = the negative sequence components of Va , Vb , Vc

A. The schematic connection diagram of motor
Va0 , Vb0 , Vc0 = the zero sequence component of Va , Vb , Vc
The motor is connected in a delta configuration as shown in

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 The analysis can be treated with the use of the instantaneous
symmetrical component transformations for the dynamic
operations of three-phase induction motor operating from
single-phase supply[1]. The instantaneous power invariant
three-phase symmetrical component transformation matrix is

⎡1 1 1⎤
1 ⎢ 2
[C ] = ⎢a a 1⎥⎥ (1) Fig.5 Negative sequence operational equation circuit
3
⎢⎣ a a2 1⎥⎦

where a = ej2π/3 which is the transformation operator. vs− = (R1 + X 1 p )is− + X m p (is− + ir− )
The instantaneous symmetrical components for the 3-phase vr−
[ ]
quantities f abc is shown by, 0=
1 + j (γ / p )
⎛ ⎞
[ f ]abc = [C ][ f ]+ − 0 (2) 0 = ⎜⎜
R2
+ X 2 p ⎟⎟ir− + X m p is− + ir−( ) (4)
⎝ 1 + j (γ / p ) ⎠
[ f ]+ − 0 are the positive, negative and zero sequence
quantities respectively. For the stator connection of Fig.1, the From (3) and (4), quantities are complex. Therefore, for
zero sequence quantities will be absent and the negative simplification, thus the positive sequence voltages and
sequence quantities are complex conjugates of the currents which are complex number, can be written as:
corresponding positive sequence quantities. The positive and
sequence equivalent circuits of the three-phase induction
motor are shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5, respectively. In this vs+ = vsx + jvsy , i s+ = isx + ji sy ,
circuit R1, X1 are resistance and leakage reactance per phase
of the stator, respectively. R2, X2 are resistance and leakage vr+ = vrx + jvry , ir+ = irx + jiry , (5)
reactance per phase referred to stator. Xm is the magnetizing
reactance. p= (1/ω)d/dt (ω is the base/supply radian frequency)
and γ is the p.u. speed with synchronous speed as base speed. In the same way as (5), the negative sequence can be
From the positive and the negative sequence equivalent obtained. As a consequence, the developed electromagnetic
circuits of induction motor, the volt-ampere equations in terms torque of sequence quantities can be expressed by:
of the positive and negative sequence impedance are as
follows.
jX m
Te =
ωs
(i i
+ −
r s − is+ir− ) (6)

where ωs =synchronous speed in mechanic degrees (rad/sec.)

The power circuit of PWM AC Chopper consists of two
bidirectional switches in conjunction with diodes as shown in
Fig.6. The motor voltage can be varied by controlling duty
Fig.4 Positive sequence operational equation circuit cycle of PWM signals to turn-on and off bidirectional SW1
and SW2 in a manner of both switches operate alternately.
More details of the circuit operation can be found in [3]. The
(
vs+ = (R1 + X 1 p )is+ + X m p is+ + ir+ ) voltage and current waveforms of the proposed PWM AC
+ chopper control technique are shown in Fig. 7. Figs. 8 -9
v
0= r illustrates simulation results of motor voltage and current
1 − j (γ / p ) waveforms at various duty ratio. As can be seen when the
higher duty cycle increases, the motor current increases. It
⎛ ⎞
0 = ⎜⎜
R2
+ X 2 p ⎟⎟ir+ + X m p is+ + ir+ ( ) (3) means that the duty cycle affects the motor voltage and
⎝ 1 − j (γ / p ) ⎠ currents.

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Fig. 6 The power circuit of PWM AC Chopper
Fig. 7 The motor terminal voltage
The Duty cycle (D) is expressed as
T Ton
D = on =
Ts Ton + Toff
where Ton is time interval for SW1 whereas Toff is time
interval for SW2.
Fig.8 The motor terminal voltage and current at D of 30%,
switching frequency 2 kHz
Fig.9 The motor terminal voltage and current at D of 90%,
switching frequency 2 kHz
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If the input supply voltage is defined as
vs (t ) = Vsm sin(ωt ) (8)
where ω and Vsm are the angular frequency and the peak
value of the input voltage, respectively. A switching function
F(t), in terms of a switching frequency ωc and duty cycle D
and order of harmonic can be expressed as in (9) which it is
defined by the Fourier Series[2]. The instantaneous output
voltage of the chopper circuit Vm(t) is obtained from the
multiplication between the switching function and input
voltage as shown in (10).
∞
2sin nDπ
F (t ) = D + ∑ sin (nωc t ) (9)
n =1 nπ
vm (t ) = F (t ) ⋅ vs (t ) (10)
C. The soft stating principle
(7)
As shown in Fig.11, the proposed system consists of two
bidirectional switches, SW1 and SW2 which each switch is
formed in a full bridge of diodes and one Insulated-Gate
Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). Note that blanking time or dead
time for preventing them from shot circuit leading to device
damage is definitly needed in practice. However voltage
spikes could be arisen. This may be solved by adding snubber
circuits across each device. The motor voltage is controlled
with the duty cycle or the ratio of switching time of both
switches. During starting process, the duty cycle increases
continuously from the initial value to the final value resulting
in an increase of the motor voltage. As a consequence, due to
the reduced motor voltage, the starting current is limited.
Fig.10 proposed system
The variation of duty cycle with time is expressed as in
(11) for adjustment of gating signals.
%Dact (t)= St +%Din (11)
where S = Slope
t = Ramp time (sec)
%Dact = the percentage of values of actual duty cycle
which is a function of time.
1993
 %Dfi = the percentage of the final desired value .
%Din = the initial value of percentage of the duty
cycle.

Note that the rate of the chane of the duty cycle or ramping of
the terminal voltage can be set as required.

b) The starting current of soft starting

Fig.13 The soft stating performance operating from 1-phase
Fig.11 The characteristic of the voltage-ramp technique PWM AC chopper with %Din=25%,S=2

D. The simulation results

Fig. 12 shows direct on line start of the motor operating
from a 1-phase supply. The starting current is very high
(approximately 6 times of the rated current). The dynamic
response of the speed is very fast. This is because of high
starting average of electromagnetic. The maximum average
electromagnetic torque is about 10 Nm.

The electromagnetic torque pulsation occurs due to

unbalanced operation of the three-phase windings.

b) The starting current of soft starting

Fig.14 The soft stating performance operating from 1-phase
PWM AC chopper %Din=20%,S=1

b) The starting current of DOL Fig.15 Comparison between starting times for all cases.
Fig.12 Motor performance for direct on line starting (DOL)
Figs. 13 and 14 show the performance during start-up at
various the starting time and the initial duty cycle by setting
up the voltage-ramp values as in (11). The dynamic response
of the speed of Fig.13 a) is faster than Fig.14 a). The
maximum average torque is higher for Din of 25 % and S of 2
than for Din of 20 % and S of 1. Clearly, both higher duty

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cycle and ramp time result in faster response and higher
maximum average torque but higher starting current. The
starting current for both cases is obviously reduced compared
with that of DOL. As a consequence the dynamic response is
slower. The acceleration time is longer than that of DOL. The
ripple torque for both cases is significant due to the
unbalanced phase currents.
REFERENCES
[1] Nabi A. Ahmed*,kenji Amei,Masaaki Sakui, “AC chopper voltage
controller-fed single-phase induction motor employing symmetrical
PWM control technique.”, Elect. Power sys. Rearch 55, 2000, pp. 15-25
[2] Nabi A. Ahmed, “Three-phase induction motor operating from single-
phase supply with an electronically controlled capacitor.”, Elect. Power
sys. Research 73, 2005, pp. 121-128
[3] Veera Thanyaphirak,Vijit Kinnares, “PWM AC Chopper Control
Schemes for Energy Saving of Single-Phase Induction Motors”, IEEE
IPEC 2012, pp.21-25
[4] Tian-Hua, “A maximum torque control with a controlled capacitor for a
single-phase induction motor ,” IEEE Trans . Ind. Electron.Vol.42, No.
1, Feb. 1995, pp.17-24
[5] S.S. Murthy ,G.J. Berg ,Bhim Singh ,C.S. Jha and B.J. Singh, “Transient
analysis of a three phase induction motor with single phase supply,”
IEEE Power Appar. Sys. PAS-102 (1), 1983, pp. 28-37

Fig.16 Comparison between accumulate energy consumption

Fig.15 shows starting times. The direct starting spends starting

time less than soft starting but direct starting gives significant
vibration of speed or speed ripple before steady-state.
Conversely soft starting method give noticeably less speed
pulsation. Fig. 16 illustrates accumulate energy consumption
during start-up (within 3 sec.) for all cases. Obviously the
accumulate energy consumption for DOL is apparently higher
than the soft starting method. For both cases of the soft
starting method the case of both lower duty cycle and ramp
time gives lower accumulate energy consumption at the
beginning after that it gives higher than that of the case of
both higher duty cycle and ramp time.

III. Conclusion
The soft starting method of three-phase induction motor
supplied from a single-phase PWM AC chopper based on the
voltage-ramp technique has been proposed to improve the
starting performances in terms of a reduction in starting
current to prevent the motor from mechanical problem like
speed ripple. The benefits in this application provide less
stress on the motor mechanically coupled to the load due to
the pulsating torque, smoothing motor acceleration. Also the
proposed soft starting method gives less accumulate energy
consumption than direct starting.

AKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge Energy Policy and
Planning office Ministry of Energy, Royal Thai
Government for financial support.

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