The overall mission of this interactive laboratory is to engage in both dedicated and interdisciplinary research studies and training facilities while providing life long experimental practices in areas related to Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

This laboratory is suitable for teaching the basic electrical engineering courses. The principal target audience is the second and the third year electrical engineering students.

In this laboratory, LabVIEW software has been chosen as an enabling technology for programming, data capturing and data analysis. The hardware of the physical systems are monitored using the custom written software in LabVIEW. This courseware introduces interactive LabVIEW-based experiments into the curriculum of an Electrical Machines and Circuits course.

This Laboratory includes the following equipments:

• Data acquisition system: at least 8 differential analog inports, 12-bit resolution, 100 kHz sampling frequency.
• Computer: a Pentium PC, more than 32 MB RAM, and more than 1 GB free space on hard disk.
• Transducers: voltage and the current transducer unit(s), such as isolation amplifier(s) and Hall-Effect device(s), for signal conditioning and isolation purposes.
• Devices Under Test: a rheostat, a single-phase transformer and the rotating electrical machines (a DC motor, an induction motor and a synchronous generator, and a DC tachogenerator all connected on a common shaft).
• Auxiliary Devices:
  • Supply: 240V, 50 Hz;
  • Auto transformer: 240V, 8A, 50Hz;
  • Supply: 3-phase, 415V, 50 Hz
  • A 3-phase auto transformer: Input: 415V, 15A; Output: 0-470V

All of these laboratories require to the students background theoretical information, such as:

• Theory of electrical circuits;
• Electromechanical energy devices;
• Electrical machines;
• Electrical Engineering, Principles and Applications.

The main educational objectives for this laboratory are

• Understand the basic concepts in the magnetic circuits;
• Analyze two typical magnetic circuits by using the simulation tools provided;
• Study the effects of changing the physical dimensions, the number of turns, and the fringing in magnetic circuits;
• Understand the hysteresis phenomena in the magnetic circuits;
• Examine the hysteresis characteristics and estimate the hysteresis losses;
• Study the impact of the higher harmonics onto the voltage and current waveforms;
• Plot and interpret the characteristics of the sinusoidal current and the voltage waveforms;
• Understand the definitions of peak to peak value, peak and rms values, phase angle, complex impedance and base values (per-unit values) in the AC circuits;
• Study resistive, inductive and capacitive loads in single-phase AC circuits;
• Analyze the steady-state sinusoidal behavior of the single-phase AC circuit using the phasors;
• Study complex power in the single-phase AC systems;
• Understand the power triangles;
• Study the requirements for the power factor correction and understand the concept;
• Understand the star-delta or delta-star conversion required in the three-phase AC systems;
• Calculate and compare impedances of these two network configurations;
• Understand the definitions of phase and line voltages, and phase and line currents in the delta and star connected AC systems;
• Estimate and view the instantaneous voltage and currents in delta and star connected AC circuits;
• Understand the powers associated with the three-phase AC circuits;
• Investigate the power measurement techniques used in three-phase AC Circuits;
• Understand the moment of inertia in rotating bodies for electrical machines;
• Learn how to measure the moment of inertia of the rotating electrical machines.