A MATLAB GUI teaching application for ferroresonance simulation

Ferroresonance is a complex phenomenon and can compromise power system sustainability in transformer cores during the electromagnetic saturation process. Over‐voltage can be induced in the inductive core of transformers in an oscillation imbalance circuit; thus causing short circuits or permanent damage to a transformer. Hence, this paper developed a teaching application that combined a graphical user interface (GUI) in MATLAB with a SIMULINK function to model a ferroresonance circuit, to undergraduate engineering students at a Chinese University, as a part of a high‐ voltage engineering course. Students can adjust the parameters in the model to test different types of resonance voltage waveforms to obtain the corresponding power frequencies directly in the GUI. Through the interactive GUI environment, the difficulties that undergraduate students experience in distance education can be eliminated. A questionnaire of the 63 students who took the course was administered to measure student perceptions of this project‐based learning experience, and the responses are included in this paper.