Restructuring Electric Machinery Laboratory for an Integrative Teaching Approach at TAMUK

This paper presents the laboratory restructuring and development for the course of Electric Machinery, also known as Electric Machines or Energy Conversion, for an integrative teaching approach. It illustrates the laboratory restructuring by using modern computer software and hardware information technology (IT) tools, by introducing DSP and digital control technology, and by restructuring a traditional energy conversion laboratory. The paper shows laboratory experiments developed for both dynamic controls of electric drives and traditional steady-state measurements of transformers and electric machines. It illustrates how MatLab Simulink and dSPACE are used in the laboratory, how experiments are designed for students to use various computer hardware and software IT tools to perform measurement and controls of electric machines and power electronic converters, and how a traditional energy conversion laboratory is restructured to let student also be able to measure steady-state characteristics of electric machines and transformers. The paper presents typical experiments designed for students to do simulation using Simulink and actual measurement using dSPACE, and to compare simulation with measurement. For many lab experiments, it shows highly animated Microsoft PowerPoint presentations developed to assist students to quickly understand basic concepts and operations of an experiment before starting it. The paper shows MatLab Simulink, dSPACE ControlDesk, OpenChoice, Mathcad and Microsoft Excel software used in the laboratory for control, measurement, design, data acquisition, and result analysis in the newly restructured and developed laboratory. Index Terms – Electric machines and drives, power electronics, feedback controls, education, MatLab Simulink, dSPACE, OpenChoice, MathCad, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint.