Name of Experiment: Design a phase control circuit using TRIAC to control the

brightness of a light.

Objective:
1)To understand the operation of a TRIAC.
2) To design and verify the phase control method of TRIAC to control the brightness
of a light.

Theory:
A Triac is a three terminal bidirectional semiconductor switching device which can
control alternating
Current in a load .Triac word made from two words: ‘Tri’ and ‘ac’ . Where Tri means
three and ac means alternating current. Thus Triac is a three terminal device which can
control alternating current in a load.It is an abbreviation for a triode ac switch . It is a
bidirectional device ,that means it can conduct in both directions (for both half cycles:
positive half cycle and negative half cycle) for a specific time period. That is why
sometimes ,it is known as bidirectional semiconductor triode switch. The symbol and
construction of a Triac are shown in figure 1(a and b).Figure 1(b) shows that a triac is
basically made by connecting two Silicon Controlled Rectifiers (SCR) in inverse parallel
combination with common gate.

Figure 1:(a) Symbol and (b,c) construction of TRIAC

Suppose the main terminal MT2 is positive and main MT1 is negative .If the Triac is now
fired into conduction by proper gate current, the triac will conduct current following the
path (left half) as shown in figure 1©.Now suppose that MT2 is negative and MT1 is
positive .With proper gate current ,the Triac will be fired into conduction .The current
through the devices follows the path (right half ) as shown in figure 1©.Note that the
Triac will conduct current in the appropriate direction as long as the current through the
device is greater than its holding current.
Equipments:
Triac kit, Ammeter , Voltmeter ,Oscilloscope,Connecting wires.

Circuit Diagram:

Figure 2:Circuit diagram for light dimming control using a Triac

Data Table:
VL(load) VTriac Rvariable
230.5 4.26 9.87
207 22.08 106
158 79 258
148.8 89.2 285
128 110.4 349
113.8 124.3 396
95.8 144 456
83.6 156.7 580
74.8 166 520
65.3 176.2 538
Report:

1. Wave form across light and triac

Resistance Vs Vbulb and Vtriac

2.Advantage and disadvantage of TRIAC over SCR:

There are some advantages of TRIAC over SCR which are given below,
1)It can be triggered with positive or negative polarities of gate pulses.
2)A safe breakdown in either direction is possible but for SCR protection should be given
with parallel diode.
3)It needs only a single heat sink of slightly larger size where as for SCR two heat sinks should
be required of smaller size.
4)When the voltage is reduced to zero the TRIAC turns OFF.

There are some disadvantages of TRIAC over SCR ,

1)It can be triggered in any direction so we need to be careful about triggering circuit.
2)As compared to SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) it has low ratings.
3)The TRIACs are not much reliable as compared to SCR.
 4)The dv/dt rating is very low as compared to SCR.

3.Applications of TRIAC:

TRIACs are used in numerous applications such as light dimmers, speed controls for
electric fans and other electric motors and in the modern computerized control circuits
of numerous household small and major appliances. They can be used both into AC
and DC circuits however the original design was to replace the utilization of two SCRs in
AC circuits.There are two families of TRIACs, which are mainly used for application
purpose, they are BT136, BT139.

Discussion:
In this experiment we have used capacitor for triac gate pulse.If we would used resistor
then only half cycle can be used for gate pulse.

When resistance of variable pot is increased then intensity of bulb decreases i.e. when
firing angle increases then current decreases.

We are not got pure data by this experiment.This error may occurs for instrument
losses.

In this experiment we have learnt the operation of triac and trigerring of triac.I think this
learning will help in our professional life.