When designing operating systems for low-pressure mercury discharge lamps (lamp, ballast and ignition system), a good knowledge of the lamp’s current-voltage characteristics and their mathematical description is necessary. A developed mathematical model with high reproduction reliability will allow for a detailed analysis of the lamp’s operating system, which is very important in terms of increasing the energy efficiency of the system. The model was built using measurement results from a group of discharge lamps and computer simulation results. Verification of the simulation results confirmed high consistency with the measurement data.The most common low-pressure mercury discharge lamp is the fluorescent lamp. Its operating principle is based on an electrical discharge in low-pressure mercury vapor. The fluorescent lamp has a negative non-linear voltage-current characteristic. This feature does not allow these lamps to operate in an electrical circuit without an additional device used to limit the lamp current to a specific value. Most often, lamp operating systems with electromagnetic ballasts or lamp operating systems with electronic ballasts are used for this purpose. (…)
The article contains 12460 characters.
Source: Logistyka Magazine 2009
Model parameters of a low-pressure mercury discharge lamp – PDF file for download