Design and Self-calibration of the RVD with Serial-paralllel Connection

Xianlin Pan1, Zhaomin Shi2, Wenfang Liu2, Zhenyu Jin3, Ying Song1, Jiang
gtao Zhang1
1
National Institute of Metrollogy, No.18, Bei San Huan Dong Road, 100029, Beiijing, China
2
College of Instrumentation and Electtrical Engineering, Jilin University, No.938, Xi Min Zhu Street, 130026,
Changchun, China
3
Henan Province Institute of Metrology, No.21, Hua Yuan Lu, 450008, Zhengzh
hou, China
Email: panxl@nim.ac.cn

Abstract — A new design of resistive volttage divider with

I. INTRODUCTION
Resistive Voltage Divider (RVD) is widdely used at the Fig.1. Structure of the RVD with serial--parallel connection
measurement of ac voltage and the establishm ment of ac power
Considering the resistive elements of this RVD are selected
national standard. For the ac power measureement, it requires
with identical resistance, the time constant
c influence from the
not only the amplitude errors at working freqquencies, but also
resistive elements can be ignoreed. So the dominant part
the phase angle errors [1].
causing the phase angle errors of o this RVD is from the
Several designs of the RVDs have beeen proposed by
capacitive leakage between resistorr element and low terminal
National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). Forr the RVD, the
housing. For this RVD, the capaciitance between the resistor
dominant part of the phase angle errors is froom the capacitive
elements and housing is evenly disstributed and the influence
leakage between resistor elements and thhe housing [2].
for the phase angle errors of the RV
VD can be described as:
Another part is caused by the time constant innfluence from the
resistor element itself. Thermal Power Coomparator (TPC)
method [3] and sampling method [4] aare proposed to θC = −(CR × ∑
m
( i × n × ( m − i ) +i ) + mC0
) × ω R (2)
determine the phase angle errors of RVD at high frequencies i =1 mn +1 mn +1
up to 100 kHz. where CR is the capacitance between each resistor element and
At National Institute of Metrology (NIM) China, a coaxial housing, C0 is the capacitance betwween input terminal and the
RVD structure with serial-parallel conneection has been housing, ω is angle frequency, R is the resistance of each
proposed. With this design, the influence from the time resistor element. As seen from equaation (2), phase angle error
constant of the resistor can be eliminated. A mmethod has been from the capacitive leakage is in direct
d proportion to the R.
proposed to measure capacitive leakage influeence of the RVD Based on this special ratio relationsship of this RVD, a method
and determine the phase angle errors at freqquencies from 10 has been proposed to accurately meeasure the phase angle error.
kHz to 100 kHz.
III. SELF-CALIBRATIO
ON PRINCIPLE
II. RVD WITH SERIAL-PARALLEL CON
NNECTION
In order to keep the capacitance nearly
n the same, two RVDs
A coaxial RVD with serial-parallel connnection has been with identical structure and differeent resistor elements have
developed, and the structure is shown in F Fig.1. The RVD been built, marked as RVD1 and RVD R 2. So the phase angle
mainly contains two parts. The upper part connsists of m sets of errors of RVD1 and RVD2 from capacitive leakage can be
resistor with identical value in series connectiion and the lower expressed as:
part with n sets of resistor in parallel connection. The series
resistors distribute along the axis of the shelll and the parallel
θ C 1 = − (C R × ∑
m
( i × n × ( m − i ) +i ) + mC0
) × ω R1 (3)
resistors was star shaped distributed evenly aalong the circular
i =1 mn +1 mn +1
surface. The ratio K of the RVD can be expreessed as equation
(1):
K = mn + 1 (1)
97
78-1-4673-9134-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
θC 2 = −(CR × ∑
m
( i × n × ( m − i ) +i ) + mC0
) × ω R2 (4)
and 9 resistors in parallel. The phase angle difference between
two RVDs can be accurately measured, and then the phase
i =1 mn +1 mn +1 angle errors of each RVD can be determined. The
where R1 and R2 is the resistance value of the resistor elements measurement has been done at frequencies from 10 kHz to
for RVD1 and RVD2 respectively. As seen from equation (3) 100 kHz, and results are shown in Table I.
and (4), the phase angle errors difference between RVD1 and
TABLE I
RVD2 can be determined as: SELF-CALIBRATION RESULTS IN PHASE ANGLE ERRORS OF THE RVD
Δθ =θC1 -θ C 2 WITH RATIO OF 100:1 AT FREQUENCIES FROM 10 kHz TO 100 kHz

= −(CR × ∑
m
( i × n × ( m − i ) +i ) + mC0 ) × ω R -R (5) Phase angle errors in μrad at frequencies in kHz
( 1 2) Results
i =1 mn+1 mn +1 10 15.92 20 50 100
According to the equation (5), the phase angle errors of RVD1 Δθ=θc1-θc2 -169 -275 -349 -904 -1827
and RVD2 can also be determined by:
θc1 (R=1 kΩ) -188 -305 -388 -1005 -2031
R1
θC1 = × Δθ (6) θc2 (R=100 Ω) -19 -31 -39 -100 -203
R1 − R2
R2
θC 2 = × Δθ (7) VI. CONCLUSION
R1 − R2
A method to calibrate the phase angle errors of the RVD
As seen from equation (6) and (7), R1 and R2 can be easily with serial-parallel connection has been proposed. The RVD
known, so the phase angle errors of each RVD can be with known phase angle errors can be used as the voltage
calibrated by measuring Δθ. divider reference and applied to measure the ac power at high
frequencies up to 100 kHz.
IV. MEASUREMENT SETUP
A measurement setup to determine the phase angle VII. FUTURE WORK
difference between RVD1 and RVD2 has been developed and Based on this serial-parallel connection design, a series of
shown in Fig.2. The input terminals of the RVD1 and RVD2 RVDs with different ratios will be built, to cover the need for
are connected directly into the ac voltage source, and the the voltage ranges from 100 V to 600 V at frequencies up to
output terminals are connected with an adjusted resistor 100 kHz.
respectively to keep the output impendence identical. A high-
speed digitizer is used to measure the phase angle errors
between the voltage drops on the output terminals of RVD1 REFERENCES
and RVD2. [1] Hagen, T., and I. Budovsky, “Development of a precision
resistive voltage divider for frequencies up to 100 kHz”, CPEM
2010 Conf. Dig., pp.195 – 196, 2010.
[2] Karl. E. Rydler, S. Svensson, and V.Tarasso, “Voltage dividers
with low phase angle errors for windband power measuring
system,” CPEM 2002 Conf. Dig., pp.382-383, 2002.
[3] I. Budovsky, “Measurement of phase angle errors of precision
current shunts in the frequency range from 40 Hz to 200 kHz,”
IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 284–288, Apr.
2007.
[4] Bergsten,T., V.Tarasso, and K.E.Rydler, “Precision measurement
system for character of phase displacement of voltage dividers up
to 1 MHz”, CPEM 2010 Conf. Dig., pp. 259-260, 2010.

Fig.2. Measurement setup

V. MEASUREMENT RESULTS .

Based on the serial-parallel connection, two RVDs with