Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

Module 3: Induction Motor Drives

Syllabus:
Analysis and Performance of Three Phase Induction Motors, Operation with
Unbalanced Source Voltage and Single Phasing, Operation with Unbalanced Rotor
Impedances, Analysis of Induction Motor Fed From Non-Sinusoidal Voltage Supply,
Starting, Braking, Transient Analysis. Speed Control Techniques-Stator Voltage
Control, Variable Voltage Frequency Control from Voltage Sources

Advantages of Induction motor

 Light in weight (cage type motor is usually used)
 Higher efficiency
 Low maintenance
 Robust and reliable
 Less cost than commutator type motor
 Ability to operate in dirty and explosive environment
 Advance feedback control technique such as field oriented control

Disadvantages of Induction motor

 Armature and field windings are highly coupled
 Non-linear modeling
 Multi-variable structure
 Controller such as power converter, inverters are relatively complex and
expensive.
Steady-state performance of three phase induction motor:
 The steady state performance can be studied from the power flow and equivalent
circuit

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

Steady-state torque-speed Characteristics:

Three zones are there

i) motoring zone (0<s<1) ii) regenerating zone (s<0) iii) plugging zone (1<s<2)

 In the normal motoring zone Tm=0 at s=0.

 When slip increases, speed decreases but torque approaches maximum value.
 In the breakdown zone called quasi region, the stator drop is small and flux remains
constant.

Features

 At s=0, Tm=0 because there is no induced current and zero relative speed.
 Tem is the maximum at sm where R’r = s X’r
 Tst is starting torque when s=1
 The motor is stable between (0 to sm)

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

Speed-Control
There are five methods for speed control for modifying speed-torque characteristics.
i) Stator voltage control
ii) Stator Frequency control
iii) Slip power recovery control ((Kramer drive)) or Rotor emf injection method
iv) Rotor resistance control

Supply voltage control Method:

 The curves indicate that, the slip at maximum torque is independent of terminal
voltages.
 The range of speeds within which steady state operation (for constant torque loads )
may takes place for same for all voltages i.e. between the maximum torque and
synchronous speed.
 With in that region there will be a small speed drop with decrease in voltage
 This method is suitable for fan, pump and centrifugal drives.

Drawbacks:
 Gives poor energy efficiency at low speed
 This method is only suitable for below base speed

Stator Frequency control

 By controlling the stator frequency ‘f’, synchronous speed which in turn determines
the rotor speed of the motor.
 When the frequency is varied, then the magnetizing current Im is also affected, which
is given by

 But, the magnetizing current must be constant for constant breakdown torque
(maximum torque).
 Therefore, for constant breakdown torque, Vs/f ratio should be maintained constant.
 When the operating frequency is increased beyond the breakdown torque, then the
torque gets reduced but the starting torque is increased.
 For further decrease in supply frequency Vs/f cannot be maintained constant.
 At very low frequency the apparent increases that increased the voltage drop.
 Hence Vs decreased.

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

Slip power recovery control (rotor emf injection method):

 In an induction motor, torque is equal to the power crossing the air gap divided by the
synchronous mechanical speed.
 In early slip-ring induction motor drives, power was transferred through the motor to
be dissipated in external resistances, connected to the slip-ring terminals of the rotor.
 This resulted in an inefficient drive over most of the speed range.
 More modern slip-ring drives use an inverter to recover the power called slip power
from the rotor circuit, feeding it back to the supply system.
 One of the best recovery drive circuit is static Scherbius drive.

 It is seen the slip increases when the injected emf is in phase opposition to the induced
emf.
 Now, as the slip increases, the induced emf increases and hence the current till the
developed torque is equal to the load torque.

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

 In this way the injected emf controls the speed.

 Similarly when the injected emf is in same phase then the slip decreases.

Scherbius method for slip power recovery:

 In this scheme, the rotor terminals are connected to a three-phase diode bridge that
rectifies the rotor voltage.
 This rotor output is then inverted into mains frequency ac by a fully controlled
thyristor converter operating off the same mains as the motor stator.
 The dc link current, smoothed by a reactor, may be regulated by controlling the firing
angle of the converter in order to maintain the developed torque at the level required
by the load.
 The current controller (CC) and speed controller (SC) are also indicated. The current
controller output determines the converter firing angle  from the firing control circuit
(FCC). From the equivalent circuit and ignoring the stator impedance, the RMS
voltage per phase in the rotor circuit is given by

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

 Assuming that the transformer interposed between the inverter output is and the ac
supply has the same turn ratio ‘n’ as the effective stator-to-rotor turns of the motor.

 The negative sign arises because the thyristor converter develops negative dc voltage
in the inverter mode of operation.
 The dc-link inductor is mainly to ensure continuous current through the converter so
that the expression holds for all conditions of operation.
 Combining the preceding three equations gives

 Thus, the motor speed can be controlled by adjusting the firing angle  . By varying 
between 180º and 90º, the speed of the motor can be varied from zero to full speed,
respectively.

Rotor resistance control

 The introduction or rotor resistance in slip ring induction motor will modifies the
speed-torque curves.
 The operating points from zero to synchronous speed can be obtained in this method.

 We may recall the expression for the torque of the induction machine.
 Clearly, it is dependent on the rotor resistance.
 Further, that the maximum value is independent of the rotor resistance.
 The slip at maximum torque dependent on the rotor resistance.
 Therefore, we may expect that if the rotor resistance is changed, the
maximum torque point shift to higher slip values, while retaining a constant
torque.
 Figure shows family of torque-speed characteristic obtained by changing the
rotor resistance.

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

 Note that while the maximum torque and synchronous speed remain constant,
the slip at which maximum torque occurs increases with increase in rotor
resistance, and so does the starting torque.
 Whether the load is of constant torque type or fan-type, it is evident that the
speed control range is more with this method.
 Further, rotor resistance control could also be used as a means of generating
high starting torque.
 For all its advantages, the scheme has two serious drawbacks.
 Firstly, in order to vary the rotor resistance, it is necessary to connect external
variable resistors (winding resistance itself cannot be changed).
 This therefore necessitates a slip-ring machine, since only in that case rotor
terminals are available outside.
 For cage rotor machines, there are no rotor terminals.
 Secondly, the method is not very efficient since the additional resistance and
operation at high slips entails dissipation resistors connected to the slip-ring
brushes should have good power dissipation capability.
 Water based rheostats may be used for this.
 A `solid-state' alternative to a rheostat is a chopper controlled resistance
where the duty ratio control of the chopper presents a variable resistance load
to the rotor of the induction machine

Operation with Unbalanced Source Voltage and Single Phasing:

 A single phase induction motor is not self-starting; thus, it is necessary to

provide a starting circuit and associated start windings to give the initial
rotation in a single phase induction motor.
 The normal running windings within such a motor can cause the rotor to turn
in either direction, so the starting circuit determines the operating direction.
 A poly phase induction motor is self-starting and produces torque even at
standstill.
 Available squirrel cage induction motor starting methods include direct on-line
starting and reduced-voltage starting methods based on classical reactor,
auto-transformer and star-delta assemblies, or, increasingly, new solid-state
soft assemblies and, of course, VFDs.
 Unlike with the wound-rotor motor, it is not possible to connect the cage rotor
to external resistance for starting or speed control.
 For small single-phase shaded-pole motor of a few watts, starting is done by a
shaded pole, with a turn of copper wire around part of the pole.
 The current induced in this turn lags behind the supply current, creating a
delayed magnetic field around the shaded part of the pole face.
 This imparts sufficient rotational character to start the motor.
 These motors are typically used in applications such as desk fans and record
players, as the starting torque is very low and low efficiency is not
objectionable.
 Larger single phase motors have a second stator winding fed with out-of-
phase current; such currents may be created by feeding the winding through a
capacitor or having it have different values of inductance and resistance from
the main winding.
 In some designs, the second winding is disconnected once the motor is up to
speed, usually either by a centrifugal switch acting on weights on the motor

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore
 Industrial Drives and Applications (15EE82)

shaft or a thermistor which heats up and increases its resistance, reducing the
current through the second winding to an insignificant level.
 Other designs keep the second winding on when running, improving torque.
 Poly phase motors have rotor bars shaped to give different speed/torque
characteristics.
 The current distribution within the rotor bars varies depending on the
frequency of the induced current.
 At standstill, the rotor current is the same frequency as the stator current, and
tends to travel at the outermost parts of the squirrel-cage rotor bars (the skin
effect).
 The different bar shapes can give usefully different speed/torque
characteristics as well as some control over the inrush current at startup.
 Poly phase motors can generate torque from standstill, so no extra
mechanism is required to initiate rotation.

Starting braking, transient analysis:

 Any useful motor relationships between time, current, voltage, speed, power
factor and torque can be obtained from equivalent circuit analysis.
 The equivalent circuit is a mathematical model used to describe how an
induction motor's electrical input is transformed into useful mechanical energy
output.
 A single-phase equivalent circuit representation of a multiphase induction
motor is sufficient in steady-state balanced-load conditions.
 Neglecting mechanical inefficiencies, the basic components of the induction
motor equivalent circuit are:
 Stator resistance and leakage reactance ( Rs, Xs )
 Rotor resistance and leakage reactance (Rr , Xr or R’r , X’r )
 Rotor slip ( s)
 Magnetizing reactance (Xm)
 Inertia of the motor and mechanical load.

Praveen B.R, Asst Prof, Dept of EEE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Rajanukunte, Bangalore