Study for the electric arc of alternative current at the single phase welding machine using the Matlab/Simulink environment

In this paper is presented a mathematical model of the electric arc for an alternative current welding machine of low power. The electric arc model is based on dividing the voltage-current characteristic of the electric arc in many functioning zones. For the model of the entire welding machine are used real parameters as the ones of the proper welding machine. The voltage and current harmonics spectrum that is obtained during the welding process is presented. Also, the waveforms for the current and voltage of the electric arc plotted against time and the voltage-current characteristic of the electric arc are illustrated. The electric arc is considered as being supplied by alternative voltage from the electrical power network using a single phase transformer which has the output voltage of 80 volts. The model of the welding machine is developed in Simulink and the variations of some parameters of the electric arc are obtained by modifying of them in a Matlab function. Also, in this paper is presented the total harmonic distortion for the voltage and current of the electric arc obtained during simulation of the welding machine. (paper)