EE 3183 - Laboratory Practice IV

THYRISTOR SWITCH APPLICATIONS

[Semester 5]

Instructed by: Ms Harshani

Group Members:

Name : M.A.D.T. Madurasinghe

M.A.D.T.Madhurasinghe 120358X Index No. : 120358X
W.K.I.Madushaka 120376B Group : G-12
M.D.C.P.K.Mahawithana 120379L Field : Electrical Engineering
D.G.P.R.Maithriepala 120380G Date of Perform. : 03/07/2015
M.A.L.K. Munasinghe 120407A Date of Submission : 30/08/2015
[Late submission due to marking week]
 OBSERVATIONS

Experiment : Thyristor Switch Applications

Name : M.A.D.T Madurasinghe.
Index No. : 120358X
Group : G-12
Date of Performance :03 /07/2015
Instructed By : Ms. Harshani

DC switch opening and closing by means of a push button.

[Graph 1 : Anode – Cathode Voltage of SR3 & Graph 2 : Gate Voltage of SR4]

By Graph : 1,
Time taken from pressing of S4 to stopping of SR3 = 0.4 x 2.5 = 0.1 ms
DC switch opening with an over current.

Over current potentiometer at 0 position,

Current = 1.04 A

The lamp goes off, Position of the potentiometer is at point 8

Current = 2.00 A

AC switch opening and closing by means of a miniature switch.

[Graph: Voltage Waveform between R5 and R6 when lamp is lit up and Voltage Waveform between R5 and R6 when lamp goes off]

By graph 04,

Peak to peak voltage = 3.8 x 200mV

= 760 mV
Peak voltage = 760/2 mV
= 380 mV
Resistance of R5 and R6 = 100 x 2 Ω
= 200 Ω
Gate current of thyristor SR1 = 380/200 mA
= 1.9 mA
AC switch opening and closing with lights.

[Graph: Voltage Waveform between R5 and R6 without a light barrier and, Voltage Waveform between R5 and R6 with a light barrier]

By Graph 05,

Peak voltage = 2.8 x 50 V

= 14 V
Gate current peak in thyristor SR1 and SR2 = 14/100
= 1.4 A
Mechanical switch opening and closing with a magnetic relay.

[Graph 1: Voltage Waveform of Coil RL1 & Graph 2: Voltage Waveform of lamp]

Switch on time = 1.2 x 10 ms

= 12 ms
 DISCUSSION

1.

 Expected service life of contacts of thyristors is unlimited while that of mechanical

switches is limited.
 There is no need of additional mechanical power to operate.
 Easy to implement thyristor switches rather than mechanical switches.
 Low transient current in the thyristor switching (In mechanical switches transient
current is very higher than nominal current).
 Switching frequency is very high in thyristor.
 Thyristor maintaining cost of is very low compare to mechanical switches.
 No presence of mobile electrical contact like mechanical switches. Therefore can use in
wide range of voltage.

2.

 Normal inductive ballast of fluorescent lamp can replace by ballast with the thyristor
circuit
 Fan regulators, designed by thyristors are more efficient and compact compare to the
traditional transformer based regulators.
 Three phase inverter-switching circuits are constructed using thyristors since the
switching frequency is larger where mechanical switches cannot use to achieve.

3.

AC switching:

 Should apply gate pulse at every half cycle.

 Need two thyristors in parallel in opposite direction to each other
 Conducting is stopped naturally on opposite half cycle of AC voltage.

DC switching:

 Special reverse biasing method is need to used switching off (eg: charged capacitor)

4.

The mechanical switching have moving parts which take more time to make metal contacts
while the thyristor does not contain any moving parts or metal contacts. Sticking and
bouncing also can present in mechanical switching and can cause to low response in the
switching. Thus Mechanical switching is slower compare to DC switching of thyristors.
Typically the mechanical switching is several hundred times per minute while thyristor
switching can goes over thousands times per second.

5.
 Over current protection in mechanical switche is impractical in power electronic applications
because of their speed operation and size. Therefore thyristor over current protection is
implemented in power electronic circuits. A thyristor is triggered when the over current is
detected and hence the over current is bypass through the thyristor. An over current cause to
the increment of voltage across the resistor R and provide the gate voltage require thyristor to
conduct. Then the transformer is functioned and the power circuit is isolated by mechanically.

6.

 Increase the reliability of the circuit due to use of less electronic component for protection
of thyristor.
 No need a pulse transformer to trigger. Therefore low expensive.
 It ensures that the device is protected against too high forward voltage, against an
excessive increase in the forward voltage in the forward direction (dv/dt) and against the
positive voltage pulses in recovery time.
 Not affected by the interferences of harmonics, voltage and frequency changers etc. in the
system.