EERI 311 Practical 1: Test Bench Introductory Practical

1 March 2023

The point of this practical is to help the student become more familiar with the test benches,
in order to make the main three practical’s in this subject easier for the students.

Lab and Practical Rules

1. Students will only be allowed into the machines labs with closed shoes, i.e. no sandals,
slops, etc.
2. Students are also required to wear long pants in the machines labs.
3. Students should not wear any loose clothing or hair in the machines labs, e.g. ties.
4. For the purpose of this practical all measurements will be done on Tiepie (the software
for Tiepie can be found on eFundi and should be installed before the practical session),
thus, students MAY NOT make use of any multimeter, voltmeters or ammeters.

Practical Requirements
1. Each student should complete the safety test on eFundi before they are allowed in the
machines labs.
2. Each student is required to attend the safety induction in the machines labs at the start
of the practical session.
3. Prepare a short safety report before entering the lab and present it at the lab before
starting your practical.
4. The practical session will take place on the 1 March 2023 in the machines labs and
can be done in groups of two. In this practical session, you will be required to:
a. Connect one of the three phases of the voltage supply and the neutral to one
of the 64 Ω resistors. The Tiepie current box and voltage probes must also be
connected. The voltage across and current in the 64 Ω resistor must be
measured.
b. Turn the voltage supply on and turn up the voltage until it the resistor draws a
current of 2.0 A (the resistor's rated current can also be seen on the test bench).
Use the Tiepie to make sure the current supplied to the resistor is 2.0 A.
c. Record and save the voltage, current and phase angle readings supplied from
the source to the resistor.
d. The next part is to connect the power supply to a single-phase transformer in
the test bench. Again make sure that the Tiepie current box and voltage probes
are connected. Measure the voltage at the primary and secondary terminals,
as well as the current in the primary circuit.
 e. By making use of Tiepie make sure that a voltage of 250 V is supplied to the
transformer.
f. Record and save the voltages at the primary and secondary terminals of the
transformer, as well as the current through the primary winding. Once these
values have been recorded and saved calculate the phase angle between the
primary and secondary voltage of the single-phase transformer and the phase
angle between the primary voltage and current.
5. After the practical session each group will be required to submit a short report (4
pages) by 23:00 on 7 March 2023, the report should contain;
a. An explanation of your measurement setups;
b. Graphs of the current in and voltage vs time across the 64 Ω resistor in Excel
format (no screenshots) plus the measured RMS values of the current and
voltage;
c. Calculate the active and reactive power drawn by the resistor using RMS
values;
d. Graphs of the primary and secondary voltage vs time at the transformers
terminals and the graph for the current vs time through the primary winding in
Excel format (no screenshots);
e. Calculate the active and reactive power drawn by the transformer using RMS
values.