THYRISTOR SWITCH APPLICATIONS

Instructed by: Miss. G.N.T Silva

NAME INDEX NO GROUP DATE OF PER DATE OF SUB

: J.A.T Jayaweera : 090231N : 06 : 20 / 01 / 2011 : 03 / 02 / 2012

Observation sheet NAME INDEX NO GROUP DATE OF PER INSTRUCTED BY : J.A.T. Jayaweera : 090231N : G 06 : 20/01/2012 : Miss.G.N.T.Silva

(a) DC switch opening and closing by means of a push button Anode-Cathode voltage of SR3 after pressing S3

(b) Dc switch opening with an over current

Time taken from pressing S4 to stopping of SR3 = 5 250 ms = 1.25 s

(c) Ac switch opening and closing by means of a miniature switch. Voltage waveform between R5 and R6

R5+R6 resistance = 100 Peak voltage = 0.7 V Gate current of SR1 and SR2 =0.7/100 A = 7mA (d) Ac switch opening and closing with lights Waveform across R5 and R6

Peak voltage = 14 V (

Gate Current peak in SR1 & SR2 = 14/100 A = 140 mA

(e) Mechanical switch opening and closing with a magnetic relay

Switch on time = 5.00 ms 2 squares = 10.00 ms

Discussion I. What are the advantages using a thyristor switch in a place of mechanical switch?

When we compared thyristor switch over mechanical switch we can identify several advantages of using thyristor switch in applications. Some of those are as followed. The main advantage of theThyristor switches would be their working frequency. When compared to mechanical switches this can be operate (On and off) very fast because they are not operates with mechanical means but changing the voltage levels applied on it. The power required to operate the switch is very low in Thyristor switch. That means we can control large power using considerable less amount of energy. (In between the range of few tens of micro amps to a few milliamp of gate current) Thyristor switch need much less space compared to mechanical switch and this would be a major advantage when designing the compact circuits. Thyristor switches are used conductivity (basically a biasing) to operate (on or off) so it can reduces most of drawbacks which attached to mechanical means where connecting two ends of circuit mechanically such as electrical arcing, producing the harmonics etc It is less expensive than using mechanical switch specially a high voltage applications When it comes to automated systems thyristor switches are preferred because those can controlled by just changing the voltage levels Interferences to other networks are much less in thyristor switches There is no problems such as replacing the wearied parts, regular maintains etc which associated with mechanical switches II. Types of applications which preferred thyristor switch over mechanical switch

Due to the above reasons applications which described follows are preferred thyristor switches. Thyristor switches used applications where required more fasterand safe control such as high voltage circuit breakers Those are used in phased controlled rectifiers for dc and ac motor drives When high voltage DC lines are used to transmit the power over very long distances thyristor switches are used to converting purposes Light activated thyristor switches used fiber optical controlling applications. Those are used applications such as robotics, aerospace where accuracy and preciseness is essential Those are used as lighting dimmers in televisions and motion pictures Thyristor switches are used in snubber circuits in convertors which maintains power in desirable region III. Compare the operation of DC switch and AC switch

DC switch operation DC switch operation means thyristor used to control the DC current. In here thyristorreceived required terminal voltage and pulse signal. This conduction cannot stop by using the gate pulse. To stop the conduction it needs to negative terminal voltage and keep some time not less than its turn off time. In order to achieve those conditions we used commutative circuit. This circuit consists of capacitor which charged when the circuit is on mode. When we want to stop the thyristor from conducting we connect the capacitor with thyristor parallel. In here we should make sure that capacitor can has required capacitance and discharged time is more than the turn off time of the thyristor.

AC switch operation We used two parallel thyristors which connect in opposite directions. One will conduct the positive half cycle and other will conduct next half cycle when first one is in reversed bias condition. This operation doesnt required commutative circuit and two zener diodes are used to give constant voltage. In the positive half cycle one zener diode is activated and gives gate signal to particular thyristor and it will starts conducting and when negative half cycle is reached above thyristor is in reversed biased condition and second zener diode is in conducting region and it will give gate signal to second thyristor to activate. So both negative and positive halves of the signal is conducted

IV.

How slower the mechanical switch compared to the dc-switch is?

When we consider the 1600 V and 350 A thyristors it has following characteristics Turn on time - 8 sTurn off time - 150 s But in normal mechanical switch it takes about 10 ms and it is about 100 times slower than thyristor operation time

V.

How can the over current opening be used to protect a power electronic circuit?

In over current protection circuit there is a zener diode which responsible to give a gate pulse to the thyristor. When there is over current the voltage across the zenerdiode (In commutating circuit) will starts conducting the gate pulse to the commutating thyristor which stops the current flowing in circuit. In here thyristor switches are preferred due to their fast and accurate operating characteristics

VI.

What could be the advantages of light triggering in practical circuit? These days most of telecommunication activities are based on fiber optical communication methods. Using light triggering switches in controlling purposes in those are very efficient and accurate than converting those signals to electrical means In high voltage dc applications direct light triggering is used very occasionally due to development in laser diodes and it helps to improve system accuracy and reduced response time over traditional methods Light triggering methods are free from the interferences of harmonics, voltage and frequency changers etc. in the system.