UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

Power Systems 4B
Assignment 2 Harmonics in power systems
William Shipman (200500713) & Vaughan Lee (920401897) 10/24/2008

This report describes the work undertaken by the authors to complete practical 2 for Power Systems 4B. This practical examines the Total Harmonic Distortion found in 3-phase circuits. An ordinary resistive load is considered first, followed by a rectifier circuit. The use of low pass filters is examined as well to remove the harmonics from the system.

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Table of Contents
1 2 3 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical background ........................................................................................................................ 1 Implementation .................................................................................................................................... 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4 Part A............................................................................................................................................. 3 Part B ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Part C ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Part D ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Measurements and interpretation of results ....................................................................................... 8 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Part A............................................................................................................................................. 8 Part B ........................................................................................................................................... 11 Part C ........................................................................................................................................... 14 Part D .......................................................................................................................................... 16

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 18

References .................................................................................................................................................. 20

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

List of Figures
Figure 1: Phasor based representation of two of the harmonics in a distorted voltage waveform [1]. ...... 1 Figure 2: Circuit diagram for Part A. ............................................................................................................. 4 Figure 3: Experimental setup for part A of the practical. ............................................................................. 4 Figure 4: Circuit diagram for part B............................................................................................................... 5 Figure 5: Circuit diagram for Part C............................................................................................................... 6 Figure 6: Physical setup of Part C. ................................................................................................................. 6 Figure 7: Circuit diagram for Part D. ............................................................................................................. 7 Figure 8: Physical setup for Part D. ............................................................................................................... 8 Figure 9: Voltage measured over the resistor for Part A. ............................................................................. 9 Figure 10: Current flowing through the resistor for Part A. ....................................................................... 10 Figure 11: Frequency content of the resistor voltage for Part A. ............................................................... 10 Figure 12: Frequency content of the current flowing through the resistor for Part A. .............................. 11 Figure 13: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) waveforms at the bridge rectifier input ........................... 12 Figure 14: FFT of the voltage waveform for Part B. .................................................................................... 13 Figure 15: FFT of the current waveform for Part B. .................................................................................... 13 Figure 16: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) at the input to the bridge rectifier for Part C. .................. 15 Figure 17: FFT of the voltage for Part C at the bridge rectifier input. ........................................................ 15 Figure 18: FFT of the current for Part C at the input to the bridge rectifier. .............................................. 16 Figure 19: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) at the input to the bridge rectifier for Part D. ................. 17 Figure 20: FFT of the voltage for Part D at the input to the bridge rectifier. ............................................. 17 Figure 21: FFT of the current for Part D at the input to the bridge rectifier. ............................................. 18

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

List of Tables
Table 1: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part A. ........................................................................................... 11 Table 2: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part B. ........................................................................................... 14 Table 3: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part C. ........................................................................................... 16 Table 4: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part D. ........................................................................................... 18

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

1 Introduction
This practical aims to investigate the harmonic distortion found in power systems. In an AC system, the sinusoidal signal has a fundamental frequency of 50Hz (in South Africa). This frequency component is responsible for delivering active power to the load. Unfortunately, the presence of the load as well as any non-linear system elements, such as diodes, results in harmonics at multiples of the fundamental frequency of 50Hz. These harmonics do not deliver power to the load and need to be minimized.

2 Theoretical background
The 3-phase power supplied by Eskom to the University is supplied as a sinusoidal voltage at 50Hz. When this is applied to a linear load, the current that is drawn and the voltage drop over each component of the circuit will be sinusoidal with a frequency of 50Hz. The only differences may be phase shifts and amplitude changes. Non-linear loads, however, do not work under such ideal circumstances. The presence of switching elements, rectifiers, amplifiers, etc. in a circuit will result in a non-linear load. These elements will generate distorted, non-sinusoidal, voltage and current waveforms. If the Fourier Transform (in practice the FFT) is applied to these waveforms, then one finds that there are a number of spikes present in the frequency spectrum. These spikes represent frequency content at multiples of the frequency of the input voltage sinusoid (50Hz), called the fundamental frequency. These are termed harmonics. These harmonics can be represented using phasors [1], where each phasor has a particular amplitude, phase shift and frequency. The following diagram in [1] demonstrates a signal that has a fundamental component at 60Hz (United States of America) and a 5th harmonic located at 300Hz.

Figure 1: Phasor based representation of two of the harmonics in a distorted voltage waveform [1].

In a system with numerous harmonics, the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) can be used to describe, as a percentage of the fundamental component, how much of the signal is made up of harmonics. For the general case of a system with N harmonics, [1] defines the effective value of the harmonics as = + + +

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Each harmonic is described by its RMS value. This can be applied to the voltage or current waveforms. When applied to a current, E is replaced with I. The THD can now be defined for voltage and current waveforms as follows. = = The RMS values of the voltage and current for the fundamental harmonic are given by respectively. and

A problem exists however, when one tries to determine the RMS values for the fundamental component and the harmonics. These cannot be directly measured from the oscilloscope plots. The authors, however, intend to use frequency domain analysis to overcome this problem. The following analysis will be performed for a voltage; however, the results are applicable to both voltage and current waveforms. The frequency spectrum of the waveform is given by = The continuous voltage signal is is [2]: . Next, we consider the Fourier transform of a cosine function. This

cos

Each harmonic of is a cosine wave at a particular frequency. Therefore, if the amplitude of the frequency spectrum at each harmonic is known, it is possible to retrieve the original cosine signals amplitude, A. Returning to the definition of the THD, since it is a ratio of two RMS values, the peak values can be substituted instead. Finally, it should be remembered that the amplitude spectrum produced by the digital oscilloscope is in dB. Therefore, the following conversion should be applied, given a value X in dB for a particular value from the amplitude spectrum when converting to a voltage or current. 2 = 10

If converting the equivalent power contained in the signal then the formula becomes = 10 A problem, however, exists if only the difference in dB between two harmonics is known, as is the case in measurements taken by the authors when using the Rigol digital oscilloscope. If we return to the definition of the THD and expand it, we find that

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems + + + + + +

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

= =

If we consider the ratio with one harmonic component only and calculate its dB value, we find that = 20log = 20log 20log

The ith harmonic is represented by . The subscript dB indicates the decibel value of a particular quantity. Therefore, the square of the ratio of one harmonics amplitude to the amplitude of the fundamental frequency component, is = 10
log log

The THD can now be calculated by summing all of the squared terms for 2 square root.

and calculating the

The FFT function of the oscilloscope gives the magnitude of the power in the signal. This is simply the square of the signals amplitude. The decibel magnitude of the power of a voltage signal (E) is given by 10log = 10log = 20log

Therefore, the THD can be calculated from the signal power measured with the FFT function of the oscilloscope. The squared terms now become = 10 The power in the iith harmonic is given by component is .
log log

. The power contained in the fundamental frequency

3 Implementation
3.1 Part A
In this section of the practical, the 3-phase supply was connected to the Y-input of the 3-phase box. The -connected output was connected to the 3 resistors in the 3-phase box. This setup yields the following circuit layout. The current delivered to one of the resistors and voltage drop over that resistor were measured using two isolation amplifiers connected to an oscilloscope.

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 2: Circuit diagram for Part A.

Figure 3: Experimental setup for part A of the practical.

3.2 Part B
For this section, the 3-phase supply was connected to the Y-connected input of the 3 phase box. The connected output was used; one of its pins was connected to one input of the 3-phase rectifier. The other two outputs of the connection were used as input to an isolated amplifier used for measuring current. The output terminals of that isolated amplifier were connected to the input of second isolated amplifier for measuring the voltage at the input to the 3-phase rectifier. The output of the 3-phase

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

rectifier was connected to the 3-phase boxes resistors. All three resistors were connected in series to create the required 3k resistance. The actual resistance was measured to be 3.04k. The circuit diagram for the experimental setup is shown below.

Figure 4: Circuit diagram for part B.

3.3 Part C
In this section of the practical, a low pass LC filter was added to the rectification circuit of Part B to remove the undesirable harmonics present in the circuit. This filter was constructed by connected the two 3-phase box capacitors in parallel, followed by a series connection to the inductor. The inductor was formed by connecting the 3 inductors in the 3-phase box in series. The resulting capacitance and inductance are 4.78F and 754mH respectively. This should give a low pass filter whose cutoff frequency is given by = 2 1 = 2 754 10 1 4.78 10 = 83.83Hz

This LC circuit was then connected in parallel with the resistive load. The following diagrams show the circuit layout and physical setup for this part of the practical.

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 5: Circuit diagram for Part C.

Figure 6: Physical setup of Part C.

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

3.4 Part D
Here, the student replaced the LC filter used in Part C with a large capacitance. The capacitance was created by connecting the two capacitors on the 3-phase board and an electrolytic capacitor obtained from the stores, all connected in parallel. This yielded a total capacitance of 20.6F. The circuit layout and physical setup are shown below.

Figure 7: Circuit diagram for Part D.

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 8: Physical setup for Part D.

4 Measurements and interpretation of results

4.1 Part A
For this section of the practical, the authors measured the current flowing through one of the resistors as well as the voltage drop over that resistor. The following results were recorded using the Tektronix digital oscilloscope and a multimeter. The phase voltage at the input was found to be 39.6VRMS. This gives a peak input phase voltage of 56V. This input voltage generated a 68.5VRMS line to line voltage at the -connected output. This corresponds to a peak output voltage of 96.87V. Since the resistors are approximately 1k each, the peak power dissipated in one of the resistors is given by = The average power dissipated is = 96.87 1000 = 9.39W

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems = = 68.5 = 4.69W 1000

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee Vaugh

This confirmed to the authors that the resistors would be able to handle the applied voltage as they each have a power rating of 10W. From these measurements, it is expected that the current flowing through the resistors should be = 96.87 = 96.87 A 1000 68.5 = 68.5 A 1000

The measured peak current was actually 0.12A, approximately 23mA higher than anticipated. The measured peak voltage over the resistors was 94V, nearly 3V lower than the line to line voltage measured at the output. This is due to the internal resistance of the isolated transformer used for the current measurement. This increase in resistance in the circ should result in the measured current circuit being smaller than the predicted current. The only explanation is that the 3 phase boxs resistors are 3-phase resistor slightly lower than 1k.

Figure 9 Voltage measured over the resistor for Part A. 9:

Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee Vaugh

Figure 10 Current flowing through the resistor for Part A. 10:

When interpreting the above waveforms, the voltage waveform needs to be multiplied to 10, while the current waveform must be divided by 10 to obtain the actual voltage and current values. Since we are and interested in investigating the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), the authors used the FFT function of the oscilloscope to measure the frequency content of both the voltage and current waveforms shown above. Plots of the FFT of the voltage and current are shown below.

Figure 11: Frequency content of the resistor voltage for Part A.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee Vaugh

Figure 12: Frequency content of the current flowing through the resistor for Part A.

Figure 12 shows that a large number of harmonics are present in the resistor current. As expected, these harmonics occur at every multiple of the fundamental frequency, which is 50Hz. The following power levels were observed for the harmonics in the voltage and current waveforms.
Table 1: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part A.

Harmonic Frequency Power - Voltage Squared ratio - Power - Current Squared ratio no. (Hz) (dB) Voltage (dB) Current 1 2 3 4 5 50 16.2103 100 -30.5897 150 -28.9897 200 -25.7897 250 -15.3897 Total squared ratio Total Harmonic Distortion (%) 2.0893E-05 3.01995E-05 6.30957E-05 0.000691831 0.000806019 2.839047699 -3.7897 -12.1897 -28.1897 -21.7897 0.144543977 0.003630781 0.015848932 0.16402369 40.49983822

The above calculations show that the THD for the voltage is quite small at just under 3% but that there is a large amount of distortion in the current waveform, where the THD is 40.5%. Only the first 4 harmonics in the current waveform could be measured by the authors.

4.2 Part B
In this section, the voltage and current input to the 3 phase bridge rectifier were measured. From the e 3-phase authors readings in Part A, we expect the input voltage to be approximately 94V. Therefore, the peak output voltage of the rectifier should be approximately 94V. The peak power dissipation in the resistive load is, therefore, given by the following.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems = 94 = 2.91W 3040

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Since the individual resistors are capable of dissipating 10W, there will be no problem with the magnitude of the rectifiers output voltage. For this part of the practical, the authors measured the input voltage and current from the -connected output to the bridge rectifier. This is equivalent to measuring one line to line voltage. Figure 13 shows the voltage and current at the input to the bridge rectifier. This was measured using the Rigol digital oscilloscope. The peak voltage was found to be 92V while the peak current was 33.6mA.

Figure 13: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) waveforms at the bridge rectifier input

The amplitude spectrum of both the voltage and current waveforms was measured and is reproduced below.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 14: FFT of the voltage waveform for Part B.

Figure 15: FFT of the current waveform for Part B.

These two waveforms show that there is a significant amount of frequency content at the odd harmonics. This is clearest in the FFT of the current waveform.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

Table 2: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part B.

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Harmonic Frequency Power - Voltage Squared ratio - Power - Current Squared ratio no. (Hz) (dB) Voltage (dB) Current 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 50 15 150 -20 250 -15 350 -25 450 -25 550 650 Total squared ratio Total Harmonic Distortion (%) 0.000316228 0.001 0.0001 0.0001 -15 -40 -25 -30 -70 -35 -37 0.003162278 0.1 0.031622777 3.16228E-06 0.01 0.006309573 0.15109779 38.87129918

0.001516228 3.893876945

From the above table it can be seen that the THD for the voltage at the input of the 3-phase rectifier is now only about 1% higher than before. The THD for the current input into the rectifier has also decreased slightly. In the FFT plot for the voltage, the student was only able to clearly distinguish odd harmonics up to the 9th harmonic. In the FFT of the current, the 9th harmonic is unusually attenuated, even though the 11th and 13th harmonics are still quite detectable.

4.3 Part C
The same measurement setup as in Part B above was used. The only difference in the circuit was the addition of an LC filter at the output of the 3-phase bridge rectifier. The following voltage and current waveforms, as well as the frequency spectrums of each, were recorded using the Rigol digital oscilloscope.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 16: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) at the input to the bridge rectifier for Part C.

Figure 17: FFT of the voltage for Part C at the bridge rectifier input.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 18: FFT of the current for Part C at the input to the bridge rectifier.

In the voltage waveform (Figure 17), all of the harmonics have been attenuated significantly when compared to Figure 14.
Table 3: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part C.

Harmonic Frequency Power - Voltage Squared ratio - Power - Current Squared ratio no. (Hz) (dB) Voltage (dB) Current 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 50 13.6 150 -20.4 250 -15 350 -29 450 550 650 Total squared ratio Total Harmonic Distortion (%) 0.000398107 0.001380384 5.49541E-05 -13.6 -32.8 -27 -33 -65 -35 -37 0.012022644 0.045708819 0.011481536 7.24436E-06 0.00724436 0.004570882 0.081035485 28.4667324

0.001833446 4.2818752

That addition of the LC filter at the output of the rectifier has not improved the THD of the voltage waveform, even though graphically it would appear to have helped. It has, however, had a significant effect on the current waveform, decreasing the THD of the current by approximately 10.4%.

4.4 Part D
The same measurement setup as in Parts B & C was used here. The LC filter used in Part C was replaced with a large series capacitance of 20.6F. The following voltage and current waveforms, as well as the frequency spectrums of each, were recorded using the Rigol digital oscilloscope.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 19: Voltage (yellow) and current (cyan) at the input to the bridge rectifier for Part D.

Figure 20: FFT of the voltage for Part D at the input to the bridge rectifier.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

Figure 21: FFT of the current for Part D at the input to the bridge rectifier.

By comparing the above frequency spectrums to those for Part C, the authors have observed that harmonics in the voltage waveform have been attenuated by 38.4dB, approximately 4.4dB better than was achieved by the LC filter. The picture is, however, not so good when considering the frequency spectrum of the current. The LC filter was able to achieve a far greater attenuation of approximately 19.2dB, compared to that obtained by the series capacitor which was only 7.6dB.
Table 4: Total Harmonic Distortion for Part D.

Harmonic Frequency Power - Voltage Squared ratio - Power - Current Squared ratio no. (Hz) (dB) Voltage (dB) Current 1 3 4 5 7 50 14.8 150 -23.6 200 -23 250 -19 350 -23.6 Total squared ratio Total Harmonic Distortion (%) 0.000144544 0.000165959 0.000416869 0.000144544 0.000871916 2.952822427 -33.2 -40 -44 -64 0.208929613 0.083176377 0.000831764 0.292937754 54.12372437

The above readings show, curiously, that a 4th harmonic was present in the voltage waveform, but not in the current waveform, which only contained odd harmonics. The series capacitor seems to be effective at reducing the harmonic content in the voltage waveform, having reduced its THD by approximately 1%. It was not successful in reducing the THD of the current waveform, having actually increased it by approximately 5.5%.

5 Conclusion
This experiment has demonstrated the presence of harmonics in a 3-phase power system. The authors observed that even the addition of a resistor can cause harmonics. The greatest harmonic distortion occurs in the current flowing into the circuit.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

From Part C of the experiment, the authors observed that the addition of an LC filter between the output of a 3-phase rectifier and the resistive load could decrease the Total Harmonic Distortion of the current by 10%. A capacitor alone, in series with the load, is not able to achieve any reduction in the THD of the current, and only a small reduction in the voltage THD. The series capacitance actually caused an increase in the THD of the current at the input to the 3-phase rectifier. This has demonstrated the existence of harmonics and use of an LC low pass filter to filter out these harmonics.

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Assignment 2: Harmonics in power systems

William Shipman & Vaughan Lee

References
[1] T Wildi, Electrical Machines, Drives, and Power Systems, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006, pp 847-849. [2] R E Ziemer, W H Tranter & D R Fannin, Signals & Systems: Continuous and Discrete, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998, pp 30.

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