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I. INTRODUCTION
and
Since , the input power of the autotransformer is
greater than that of the transformer. The same windings are
and are the magnitudes of voltage phasors and , used for both the transformer and the autotransformer. The
respectively; and are the magnitudes of current phasors apparent power at the secondary winding is
and , respectively; and are the number of turns of
the windings; is the transformer ratio; and is the trans-
former’s nominal apparent power. which is equal to in an ideal autotransformer. is trans-
ferred from the primary to the secondary winding through the
Manuscript received June 25, 2002; revised October 22, 2002. mutual magnetic flux, and is directly transferred from
The authors are with the Power Systems Department, School of Electrical and the voltage source to the load via the electrical connection be-
Computer Engineering, UNICAMP, 13081-970 Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
(e-mail: ccastro@ieee.org; murari@dsee.fee.unicamp.br). tween the windings. The first is usually referenced as trans-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2003.814592 formed power, while the latter is referenced as conducted power.
0018-9359/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
374 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 46, NO. 3, AUGUST 2003
A. Equipment
The equipment used in the experiments was
• a variable voltage source (variac) to provide a fixed 220-V
output voltage;
• a variable 110-V resistive load;
• a 1-kVA transformer with four 110-V coils in each side,
as shown in Fig. 5, which can be conveniently connected
depending on the primary and secondary voltages;
• voltmeters, ammeters, and wattmeters.
B. Connections
Four different transformer connections were used to feed the
110-V load from the 220-V voltage source. Fig. 6 shows these
connections, called models hereafter.
Model 1 corresponds to the conventional transformer. Model Fig. 6. (a) Transformer. (b) Subtractive autotransformer. (c) Additive
2 is the subtractive autotransformer. Models 3 and 4 correspond autotransformer using one leg of the core. (d) Additive autotransformer using
to additive transformers. In model 3, only one leg of the trans- two legs of the core.
former’s core, along with its respective coils, are used. In model
4, both legs and all coils are used.
C. Equivalent Circuits
The equivalent circuit of both the transformer and the auto-
transformer is shown in Fig. 7 [4]. Shunt parameters and
represent, respectively, the core losses and magnetization
and are determined by the open-circuit test. Series parameters Fig. 7. Equivalent circuit of a transformer.
and represent, respectively, the copper losses and flux
leakage and are determined by the short-circuit test. Both open-
circuit and short-circuit tests were performed for all models autotransformers, since their low series parameters result in
shown in Fig. 6. higher currents during short-circuit situations.
Fig. 8 shows the shunt parameters obtained for the four
D. Performance Evaluation
models. The parameters are basically the same for all models.
Smaller shunt parameters and, therefore, smaller excitation A performance evaluation for the models analyzed their ef-
currents can be obtained in case an autotransformer is designed ficiencies and voltage regulation, as shown in Figs. 10 and 11,
specifically for this application, since a smaller core can be respectively.
used. The figures show that the additive autotransformers are more
Fig. 9 shows the series parameters obtained for the four efficient and provide better voltage regulation than the trans-
models. In this case, large variations can be observed both former and the subtractive autotransformer, as expected.
in resistance and reactance. The additive autotransformers
(models 3 and 4) have smaller parameters. In particular, the E. Validation of the Equivalent Circuits
leakage reactance of model 3 is very small, since the windings The equivalent circuit parameters were validated by using
are on the same leg of the core and low flux leakage occurs. them to compute the load voltage as a function of the load cur-
Additional protection measures must be taken in the case of rent. Fig. 12 shows the comparison between computed and mea-
376 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 46, NO. 3, AUGUST 2003
sured curves for models 1 and 3. The computed values closely system as special load buses or substation buses. A voltage
follow the measured values for both models. regulator is an autotransformer with a transformer ratio close to
one. Several tap positions in the winding allow the transformer
ratio to vary around one, for instance, 10% in steps of 1%.
IV. VOLTAGE REGULATORS—AN IMPORTANT APPLICATION OF The main characteristic of the voltage regulator is that its
AUTOTRANSFORMERS VOLTAGE REGULATORS copper losses increase as the transformer ratio moves away
from unity. Consider the voltage regulator shown in Fig. 13.
One of the most important applications of autotransformers This voltage regulator has three tap positions (0, 1, and 1).
is as voltage regulators. This equipment is used to control the Position 0 corresponds to the nominal position, for which the
voltage magnitude at predetermined points of an electrical transformer ratio is equal to one. The regulator shown in Fig. 13
CASTRO AND MURARI: A LECTURE ON AUTOTRANSFORMERS FOR POWER ENGINEERING STUDENTS 377
is set as a step-down voltage regulator, since the tap position is term of the right-hand side of (1) corresponds to the losses at
such that . The transformer ratio is the upper part of the winding. Similarly, the second term corre-
sponds to the losses at the lower part. Considering that
and , after some manipulation, one obtains
REFERENCES
[1] A. R. Bergen and V. Vittal, Power Systems Analysis, 2nd
ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
[2] J. J. Grainger and W. D. Stevenson, Power System Analysis. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1994.
[3] J. D. Glover and M. Sarma, Power System Analysis and De-
sign. Boston, MA: PWS-Kent, 1989.
[4] A. E. Fitzgerald, C. Kingsley, and S. D. Umans, Electric Machinery, 5th
ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.
[5] D. Zorbas, Electric Machines. St. Paul, MN: West, 1989.
[6] P. C. Sen, Principles of Electric Machines and Power Electronics, 2nd
ed. New York: Wiley, 1997.
Fig. 13. Voltage regulator.
[7] Westinghouse Electric Co., Electrical Transmission and Distribution
Reference Book, 4th ed. East Pittsburgh, PA: Westinghouse Electric
Co., 1964.
is much smaller than the load current. As long as the tap po-
sition is drifted away from the nominal position, the copper
losses increase. The same conclusion holds for step-up voltage
regulators. Carlos A. Castro (S’90–M’94–SM’00) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees
from UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1993.
V. CONCLUSION He has been with UNICAMP since 1983, where he is currently an Associate
Professor.
A new approach to teaching the principles of autotrans-
formers and their main applications in power engineering was
presented in this paper. The approach will provide the students
with more comprehensive information about the equipment. In Carlos A. F. Murari (M’90) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from
UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1975, 1980, and 1986, respectively.
addition, a strong connection between the theoretical aspects He has been with UNICAMP since 1976, where he is currently an Associate
and the engineer’s every day practice is emphasized. A number Professor.