Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Department of Electrical Engineering

A brief tutorial on PSCAD/EMTDC

Professor:
Robson Dias

Rio de Janeiro
c
2012
 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Simulations in the Domain of Time

Simulations in the realm of time are usually conducted using programs
analysis of electromagnetic transients, known as EMT (Electromagnetic Transient) type programs
(Electric Magnetic Transient). Among the numerous EMT-type programs, PSCAD/EMTDC is one of the.
the most widely used commercial programs worldwide in the electrical sector for analysis in the field of
power systems and power electronics circuits. The following are presented
the initial steps to perform simulations in PSCAD/EMTDC.

1 PSCAD/EMTDC
PSCAD (Power System CAD) is the graphical interface of the program, while the
EMTDC (Electromagnetic Transients including DC) is the core of the solution. PSCAD allows
that the user builds complex structures of electrical and control circuits graphically,
analyze the results using graphs and adjust parameters through control functions
interactive. The program comes with a complete library of components and an interface
friendly that easily allows you to configure their parameters. The information is
ridas in PSCAD are transferred, transparently to the user, to the solution core.
EMTDC, which represents and solves the differential equations in the time domain, with step
fixed integration.
The version that will be used is 4.2.1 for students, available at the electronic address.
[Link] version is complete in terms of models and components, but it is limited.
in numbers of nodes, it is possible to simulate a system with up to 15 electrical nodes and 5 subpages.
This amount of nodes is sufficient to model and simulate all the proposed circuits in
room.
Since EMTDC is based on Fortran, it is still necessary to install a Fortran compiler.
For the proposed simulations, the open source compiler GNU F77 Fortran will be used.
what comes along with the compressed package of PSCAD/EMTDC for students.

1.1 Installing PSCAD on Windows 7 64 bits

To avoid potential compatibility issues with Windows 7 64-bit, it is suggested
that the PSCAD/EMTDC be installed in compatibility mode with Windows XP SP3.
To do this, after unzipping the student version file, right-click with the mouse button.
In the installation file [Link], select properties (Figure1) and then, in the tab
for compatibility, configure the file to run in compatibility mode
with Windows XP (Service Pack 3), as shown in the figure2.
The GNU F77 Fortran compiler comes with the compressed package of PSCAD/EMTDC.
for students, and it does not need to be run in compatibility mode. However, during the
installation of PSCAD, the option to install the GNU Fortran compiler must be selected, see
Figure3.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 1

Figure 2

1.2 Component Library

The Figure4shows the PSCAD interface on its first use after installation.
On the left side, the master file of the component library appears (Master Library),
[Link] file contains all the components available in PSCAD/EMTDC.
It is advisable that it be updated as indicated in the PSCAD/EMTDC notice.
By double-clicking on the Master Library, you gain access to the sub-libraries, in which the com-
Components are separated according to the type and application, see Figure5In order to gain access to the
components of each sub-library just double-click the arrow at the bottom of the library
desired. The components can then be copied to the project file in which one is
working. More details are shown during the explanation of the presented example of the
Section2.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 3

2 Example of Project in PSCAD/EMTDC

The objective of this section is to familiarize students with the computational tool PS-
CAD/EMTDC, providing them with basic subsidies to carry out a simulation in the time domain.
For this, a half-wave diode rectifier circuit with a resistive load will be analyzed.

2.1 Creating a New Case

To create a new case in PSCAD, click on File > New > Case, see Figure6aIt exists
also the option to use the shortcut in the main bar, as indicated in the Figure6b.
After being created, the new case will be inserted into the main workspace with the name
[Link](Figure7a). Antes de come¸car a montar o circuito de simula¸c˜ao,´e importante
save the new case, for this, click on File>Save Active Project (Figure7b), or just
Right-click on the file and choose the Save option (Figure7c).
Choose an appropriate directory to save the new case and rename the case. It is ´important.
know that the file name should not contain spaces, so, as a suggestion, use underscores
if you want to give more readability to the file name (Figure8).

2.2 Inserting Components

To insert the components into the new project, double click on the components library.
e escolha a sub-biblioteca que contenha o componente desejado. Em seguida, copie-o e cole no
open project. As an example, it will be shown how to insert the font CA into the project.

1. Click on the sub-library arrow of sources (Sources), Figure 9.

2. Select the single-phase voltage source (Figure 10).

3. Copy and then paste into the project editing window (Design Editor), Figure11.

4. To configure the font, double click on the component and set it as indicated.
in the Figures12aa12e.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 4

Some components can be inserted by right-clicking with the mouse on

the project area and then selected the Add Component option (Figure13a) or in-
you can use the shortcuts that are on the bars on the right side of the PSCAD graphical interface
(Figure13b).
The direct connection between two components is made through a wire.
a thread the same procedure as in the Figure13acan be followed, or else, using the shortcut
located in the top bar (Figure14)A third option is through the keyboard, typing.
CTRL+W.
Continuing with the example of the half bridge rectifier.

1. Insert the diode into the project, which can be found in the Electronics sub-library.
Power, referred to as HVDC, FACTS & POWER ELECTRONICS.

2. Copy the diode and paste it into the project.

3. Configure the component so that the snubber circuit is removed.

4. Next, insert a resistor and rotate it so that it stands vertically. Use

the rotation shortcuts. To enable the bar with the rotation shortcuts, select
View>Rotation Bar. Another option is to use the keyboard via shortcuts:

CTRL+R⇒Rotation in the clockwise direction.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 5

(a) (b)

Figure 6

CTRL+F ⇒ Reflect regarding the horizontal axis (Flip).

CTRL+M ⇒ Reflect with respect to the vertical axis (Mirror).

5. Insert an additional land, located on the sidebar on the right.

6. Connect the power source to the diode with a wire.

7. Connect the ground to the resistor with a wire.

After these steps, the circuit should look similar to the one shown in the Figure.15.

2.3 Inserting Meters

Meters are elements that allow for the collection of voltage and current values in
mining point of the circuit. Some meters may still provide the values of active power.

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Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 10

Figure 11

and reactive, effective values, harmonic content, among other measures. Check the measuring devices
you can find it in the sub-library Meters. The following will show how to insert current meters
the tension using the shortcuts on the sidebar.

1. In the sidebar, click on the current meter .

2. Position the meter at the end of the wire that is connected to the diode (Figure15).

Double click on the meter and rename it to Icarga.

4. For voltage meters, there are two options, one that measures the voltage relative to the
ground and another that measures the voltage between two points. We will use both. To measure the
input voltage (Source), we will use the meter that measures in relation to ground, because,

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Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e)

Figure 12

(a) (b)

Figure 13

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 14

Figure 15

the ground is terrified. In the sidebar, click on the voltage meter for the ground .

Position the meter before the diode.

6. Rename the meter to Efonte. After these steps, the circuit should look like
as presented in the Figure16.

Figure 16

To measure the voltage across the diode, we will use the voltage meter between two points.

In the sidebar, click on the meter .

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

8. Rotate it so that it is horizontal. Then rename it to Ed.

9. To measure the output voltage, noting that the resistor is grounded, we have the option of
use both to measure for the ground and the meter between two points. Let's use it
the last one. Insert the meter as per the previous step, but without rotating the meter.

10. rename the gauge to Ecarga.

11. At the end of these steps, the circuit should look like the one in the figure.17.

Figure 17

2.4 Displaying the Results in Graphs

The meters only allow the collection of electrical quantities, however, they do not display and

they do not export any results. For this, it is necessary to use the output channels .A
The insertion of the output channel can be done both through the side bar and through the resource.
Add Component shown in Section2.2, or even copying from the sub-library I/O Devices.
The insertion of input channels, one for each quantity to be measured, must be
indicate which signal will be the input for each channel. For this, use the Data Label, located

on the right sidebar .

1. Insert a data label for each output channel.

2. Connect them to the channels with a wire.

3. Rename the Data Labels according to the names of the meter signals.

4. Also rename the name of each signal in the output channels by double-clicking on the channels.
and changing the title name of the signal.

After these steps, the circuit should look like the one in the figure.18.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 18

To display the results in graphs, right-click on the channel.

tensionEfontee selectGraphs/Meters/Controls>Add Overlay Graph with Signal(Fi-
gura19).

Figure 19

To display the output voltage (Ecarga) along with the input voltage, that is, two curves
in the same graph. After having already created a chart following the previous steps, click
right-click on the second channel and select Graphs/Meters/Controls
Add as Curve (Figure)20).Next, right-click on the graph and select
Paste Curve (Figura21).
Create two other graphs to display the load signal, position the graphs one below the other.
Outro. Change the name of the vertical axis of each chart according to the displayed magnitude, this
e, Voltage (kV) and Current (kA). To change the name of the vertical axis, double-click on the
left side of the graph and modify the axis title. After these steps, the circuit should
to be similar to that of the Figure22.

2.5 Simulating
Before simulating, the simulation parameters must be configured. For that:

Right-click on an empty area of the circuit editor.

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 20

Figure 21

Figure 22

2. Select Project Settings....

3. Configure the simulation time, Duration of run (sec), to 0.1. This is the time that
it will be simulated.

4. Configure the integration step, Solution time step (uS), to 10. This is the interval
of time between each moment in which the circuit is solved, this parameter varies accordingly
like the type of simulation. One must consider an integration step much smaller than
the period of the phenomenon of higher frequency, at least ten times smaller. For circuits
that involve power electronics in which the switching frequency is some
dozens of kilohertz, 10µs is a reasonable integration step in terms of precision and

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 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

simulation time.

5. Configure the display step for points, Channel plot step (uS), to 20.

6. For this example, keep the standard for the other parameters (Figure23).

Figure 23

To configure the simulation, to simulate the circuit, just click on Run, it is the green arrow.

located in the upper bar The result should be similar to that shown in the Fi-
gura24.

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Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Polytechnic School
Department of Electrical Engineering
Prof. Robson Dias

Figure 24

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