Design and analysis of a mechanical apparatus simulator

Equipment for simulating several torque-speed characteristics is studied. The proposed system can be used either as a load to test AC drives or as a mechanical power source for variable-speed electric power generation system studies. This simulator consists of a separately excited DC machine whose armature circuit is fed by a four-quadrant chopper. The control algorithm performs tasks related to set-point torque determination through the measurements of the speed and acceleration rate calculation. The system is described in detail, and the design aspects are presented. The digital simulation results are compared with the experimental results to verify the ability of the control strategies.<>