A.C. MOTOR
CONTENT 1.INTRODUCTION
2.HISTORY
3.CONSTRUCTION
4.HOW IT WORKS?
5.APPLICATION
6.SUMMARY
7.BIBLOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION An AC motor is an electric motor that is driven by an alternating current. It consists of two basic parts, an outside stationary stator having coils supplied with AC current to produce a rotating magnetic field, and an inside rotor attached to the output shaft that is given a torque by the rotating field.
There are two types of AC motors, depending on the type of rotor used. The first is the synchronous motor, which rotates exactly at the supply frequency or a submultiple of the supply frequency. The magnetic field on the rotor is either generated by current delivered through slip rings or by a permanent magnet.
The second type is the induction motor, which turns slightly slower than the supply frequency. The magnetic field on the rotor of this motor is created by an induced current.
History
In 1882 Serb inventor Nikola Tesla identified the rotating magnetic induction field principle and pioneered the use of this rotating and inducting electromagnetic field force to generate torque in rotating machines. He exploited this principle in the design of a poly-phase induction motor in 1883. In 1885, Galileo Ferraris independently researched the concept. In 1888, Ferraris published his research in a paper to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Turin.
Introduction of Tesla’s motor from 1888 onwards initiated what is sometimes referred to as the Second Industrial Revolution, making possible both the efficient generation and long distance distribution of electrical energy using the alternating current transmission system, also of Tesla’s invention (1888).[1] Before widespread use of Tesla’s principle of poly-phase induction for rotating machines, all motors operated by continually passing a conductor through a stationary magnetic field (as in homopolar motor).
Initially Tesla suggested that the commutators from a machine could be removed and the device could operate on a rotary field of electromagnetic force. Professor Poeschel, his teacher, stated that would be akin to building a perpetual motion machine. This was because Tesla’s teacher had only understood one half of Tesla’s ideas. Professor Poeschel had realized that the induced rotating magnetic field would start the rotor of the motor spinning, but he did not see that the counter electromotive force generated would gradually bring the machine to a stop. [2] Tesla would later obtain U.S. Patent 0,416,194 , Electric Motor (December 1889), which resembles the motor seen in many of Tesla’s photos. This classic alternating current electro-magnetic motor was an induction motor.
Michail Osipovich Dolivo-Dobrovolsky later invented a three-phase “cage-rotor” in 1890. This type of motor is now used for the vast majority of commercial applications.
Principle of operation and comparison to synchronous motors
A 3-phase power supply provides a rotating magnetic field in an induction motor.
The basic difference between an induction motor and a synchronous AC motor is that in the latter a current is supplied onto the rotor. This then creates a magnetic field which, through magnetic interaction, links to the rotating magnetic field in the stator which in turn causes the rotor to turn. It is called synchronous because at steady state the speed of the rotor is the same as the speed of the rotating magnetic field in the stator.
By way of contrast, the induction motor does not have any direct supply onto the rotor; instead, a secondary current is induced in the rotor. To achieve this, stator windings are arranged around the rotor so that when energised with a polyphase supply they create a rotating magnetic field pattern which sweeps past the rotor. This changing magnetic field pattern can induce currents in the rotor conductors. These currents interact with the rotating magnetic field created by the stator and the rotor will turn.
However, for these currents to be induced, the speed of the physical rotor and the speed of the rotating magnetic field in the stator must be different, or else the magnetic field will not be moving relative to the rotor conductors and no currents will be induced. If by some chance this happens, the rotor typically slows slightly until a current is re-induced and then the rotor continues as before. This difference between the speed of the rotor and speed of the rotating magnetic field in the stator is called slip. It is unitless and is the ratio between the relative speed of the magnetic field as seen by the rotor (the slip speed) to the speed of the rotating field. Due to this an induction motor is sometimes referred to as an asynchronous machine.
In contrast, a synchronous motor always runs at either a constant speed, or zero.
Construction
The stator consists of wound ‘poles’ that carry the supply current to induce a magnetic field that penetrates the rotor. In a very simple motor, there would be a single projecting piece of the stator (a salient pole) for each pole, with windings around it; in fact, to optimize the distribution of the magnetic field, the windings are distributed in many slots located around the stator, but the magnetic field still has the same number of north-south alternations. The number of ‘poles’ can vary between motor types but the poles are always in pairs (i.e. 2, 4, 6, etc.).
Induction motors can be built to run on either single-phase or three-phase power. Single-phase power is more widely available in residential buildings, but cannot produce a rotating field in the motor (the field merely oscillates back and forth), so single-phase induction motors must incorporate some kind of starting mechanism to produce a rotating field. They would, using the simplified analogy of salient poles, have one salient pole per pole number; a four-pole motor would have four salient poles. Three-phase motors have three salient poles per pole number, so a four-pole motor would have twelve salient poles. This allows the motor to produce a rotating field, allowing the motor to start with no extra equipment and run more efficiently than a similar single-phase motor.
There are two types of rotor:
- Squirrel-cage rotor
The most common rotor is a squirrel-cage rotor. It is made up of bars of either solid copper (most common) or aluminum that span the length of the rotor, and are connected through a ring at each end. The rotor bars in squirrel-cage induction motors are not straight, but have some skew to reduce noise and harmonics.
- Slip ring rotor
A slip ring rotor replaces the bars of the squirrel-cage rotor with windings that are connected to slip rings. When these slip rings are shorted, the rotor behaves similarly to a squirrel-cage rotor; they can also be connected to resistors to produce a high-resistance rotor circuit, which can be beneficial in starting
Speed control
The rotational speed of the rotor is controlled by the number of pole pairs (number of windings in the stator) and by the frequency of the supply voltage. Before the development of cheap power electronics, it was difficult to vary the frequency to the motor and therefore the uses for the induction motor were limited.
The general term for a power electronic device that controls the speed as well as other parameters is inverter. A typical unit will take the mains AC supply, rectify and smooth it into a “link” DC voltage, and, by using the method described above, converts it into the desired AC waveform.
Because the induction motor has no brushes and is easy to control, many older DC motors are being replaced with induction motors and accompanying inverters in industrial applications.
Starting of induction motors
Three Phase
Direct-on-line (DOL) starting
The simplest way to start a three-phase induction motor is to connect its terminals to the line. In an induction motor, the magnitude of the induced EMF in the rotor circuit is proportional to the stator field and the slip speed (the difference between synchronous and rotor speeds) of the motor, and the rotor current depends on this EMF. When the motor is started, the slip speed is equal to the synchronous speed, as the rotor speed is zero (slip equal to 1), so the induced EMF in the rotor is large. As a result, a very high current flows through the rotor. This is similar to a transformer with the secondary coil short circuited, which causes the primary coil to draw a high current from the mains. When an induction motor starts DOL, a very high current is drawn by the stator, on the order of 5 to 9 times the full load current. This high current can, in some motors, damage the windings; in addition, because it causes heavy line voltage drop, other appliances connected to the same line may be affected by the voltage fluctuation. To avoid such effects, several other strategies are employed for starting motors.
Star-delta starters
An induction motor’s windings can be connected to a 3-phase AC line in two different ways: wye (star in Europe), where the windings are connected from phases of the supply to the neutral, and delta (sometimes mesh in Europe), where the windings are connected between phases of the supply. A delta connection results in a higher voltage to the windings than a wye connection (the voltage is multiplied by ). A star-delta starter initially connects the motor in wye, which produces a lower starting current than delta, then switches to delta when the motor has reached a set speed. Their disadvantages over DOL starting are:
- Lower starting torque, which may be a serious issue with pumps or any devices with significant breakaway torque
- Increased complexity: more contactors and some sort of speed switch are needed
- Two shocks to the motor (one for the initial start and another when the motor switches from wye to delta)
Variable-frequency drives
VFDs can be of considerable use in starting as well as running motors. A VFD can easily start a motor at a lower frequency than the AC line, as well as a lower voltage, so that the motor starts with full rated torque and with no inrush of current. The rotor circuit’s impedance increases with slip frequency, which is equal to supply frequency for a stationary rotor, so running at a lower frequency actually increases torque.
Stator resistance starters
Autotransformer starters
Single Phase
In a single phase induction motor, it is necessary to provide a starting circuit to start rotation of the rotor. If this is not done, rotation may be commenced by manually giving a slight turn to the rotor. The single phase induction motor may rotate in either direction and it is only the starting circuit which determines rotational direction.
For small motors of a few watts it is usual to “shade” the stator poles by means of a single turn of heavy copper wire around one corner of the pole. The current induced in the single turn is out of phase with the supply current and so causes an out-of-phase component in the magnetic field, which imparts to the field sufficient rotational character to start the motor. Starting torque is very low and efficiency is also reduced. Such shaded-pole motors are typically used in low-power applications with low or zero starting torque requirements, such as desk fans and record players.
Larger motors are provided with a second stator winding which is fed with an out-of-phase current to create a rotating magnetic field. The out-of-phase current may be derived by feeding the winding through a capacitor, or it may derive from the winding having 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 means of a switch operated by centrifugal force acting on weights on the motor shaft, or by a positive temperature coefficient thermistor which after a few seconds of operation heats up and increases its resistance to a high value, reducing the current through the second winding to an insignificant level. Other designs keep the second winding continuously energised during running, which improves torque.
The design of an AC motor is considerably more involved than the design of a DC motor. The magnetic field is produced by an electromagnet powered by the same AC voltage as the motor coil. The coils which produce the magnetic field are traditionally called the “field coils” while the coils and the solid core which rotates is called the “armature”. In an AC motor the magnetic field is sinusoidally varying, just as the current in the coil varies.
How Electric Motors Work
Electric motors are everywhere! In your house, almost every mechanical movement that you see around you is caused by an AC (alternating current) or DC (direct current) electric motor.
By understanding how a motor works you can learn a lot about magnets, electromagnets and electricity in general. In this article, you will learn what makes electric motors tick.
Inside an Electric Motor
Let’s start by looking at the overall plan of a simple two-pole DC electric motor. A simple motor has six parts:
Armature or rotor
Commutator
Brushes
Axle
Field magnet
DC power supply of some sort
An electric motor is all about magnets and magnetism: A motor uses magnets to create motion. If you have ever played with magnets you know about the fundamental law of all magnets: Opposites attract and likes repel. So if you have two bar magnets with their ends marked “north” and “south,” then the north end of one magnet will attract the south end of the other. On the other hand, the north end of one magnet will repel the north end of the other (and similarly, south will repel south). Inside an electric motor, these attracting and repelling forces create rotational motion.
In the a general motor diagram, you can see two magnets in the motor: The armature (or rotor) is an electromagnet, while the field magnet is a permanent magnet (the field magnet could be an electromagnet as well, but in most small motors it isn’t in order to save power).
More Motor Parts
The axle holds the armature and the commutator. The armature is a set of electromagnets, in this case three. The armature in this motor is a set of thin metal plates stacked together, with thin copper wire coiled around each of the three poles of the armature. The two ends of each wire (one wire for each pole) are soldered onto a terminal, and then each of the three terminals is wired to one plate of the commutator.
| The final piece of any DC electric motor is the field magnet. The field magnet in this motor is formed by the can itself plus two curved permanent magnets: |
One end of each magnet rests against a slot cut into the can, and then the retaining clip presses against the other ends of both magnets.
Electromagnets and Motors
To understand how an electric motor works, the key is to understand how the electromagnet works.
An electromagnet is the basis of an electric motor. You can understand how things work in the motor by imagining the following scenario. Say that you created a simple electromagnet by wrapping 100 loops of wire around a nail and connecting it to a battery. The nail would become a magnet and have a north and south pole while the battery is connected.
Now say that you take your nail electromagnet, run an axle through the middle of it and suspend it in the middle of a horseshoe magnet as shown in the figure below. If you were to attach a battery to the electromagnet so that the north end of the nail appeared as shown, the basic law of magnetism tells you what would happen: The north end of the electromagnet would be repelled from the north end of the horseshoe magnet and attracted to the south end of the horseshoe magnet. The south end of the electromagnet would be repelled in a similar way. The nail would move about half a turn and then stop in the position shown.
| Electromagnet in a horseshoe magnet |
You can see that this half-turn of motion is simply due to the way magnets naturally attract and repel one another. The key to an electric motor is to then go one step further so that, at the moment that this half-turn of motion completes, the field of the electromagnet flips. The flip causes the electromagnet to complete another half-turn of motion. You flip the magnetic field just by changing the direction of the electrons flowing in the wire (you do that by flipping the battery over). If the field of the electromagnet were flipped at precisely the right moment at the end of each half-turn of motion, the electric motor would spin freely.
Armature, Commutator and Brushes
The armature takes the place of the nail in an electric motor. The armature is an electromagnet made by coiling thin wire around two or more poles of a metal core.
The armature has an axle, and the commutator is attached to the axle. In the diagram to the right, you can see three different views of the same armature: front, side and end-on. In the end-on view, the winding is eliminated to make the commutator more obvious. You can see that the commutator is simply a pair of plates attached to the axle. These plates provide the two connections for the coil of the electromagnet.
The “flipping the electric field” part of an electric motor is accomplished by two parts: the commutator and the brushes.
The diagram at the right shows how the commutator and brushes work together to let current flow to the electromagnet, and also to flip the direction that the electrons are flowing at just the right moment. The contacts of the commutator are attached to the axle of the electromagnet, so they spin with the magnet. The brushes are just two pieces of springy metal or carbon that make contact with the contacts of the commutator.
Putting It All Together
When you put all of these parts together, what you have is a complete electric motor:
| Armature |
In this figure, the armature winding has been left out so that it is easier to see the commutator in action. The key thing to notice is that as the armature passes through the horizontal position, the poles of the electromagnet flip. Because of the flip, the north pole of the electromagnet is always above the axle so it can repel the field magnet’s north pole and attract the field magnet’s south pole.
If you ever have the chance to take apart a small electric motor, you will find that it contains the same pieces described above: two small permanent magnets, a commutator, two brushes, and an electromagnet made by winding wire around a piece of metal. Almost always, however, the rotor will have three poles rather than the two poles as shown in this article. There are two good reasons for a motor to have three poles:
It causes the motor to have better dynamics. In a two-pole motor, if the electromagnet is at the balance point, perfectly horizontal between the two poles of the field magnet when the motor starts, you can imagine the armature getting “stuck” there. That never happens in a three-pole motor.
Each time the commutator hits the point where it flips the field in a two-pole motor, the commutator shorts out the battery (directly connects the positive and negative terminals) for a moment. This shorting wastes energy and drains the battery needlessly. A three-pole motor solves this problem as well.
It is possible to have any number of poles, depending on the size of the motor and the specific application it is being used in
Applications
Three phase induction motors are used wherever the application depends on AC power from the national grid. Because they don’t need commutators they are particularly suitable for high power applications.
They are available with power handling capacities ranging from a few Watts to more than 10 MegaWatts.
They are mainly used for heavy industrial applications and for machine tools.
The availability of solid state inverters in recent years means that induction motors can now be run from a DC source. They are now finding use in automotive applications for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the induction motor is ill-suited for most automotive applications because of the difficulties associated with extracting heat from the rotor, efficiency problems over wide speed and power ranges, and a more expensive manufacturing process due to distributed windings. Permanent magnet and reluctance motors offer better solutions for these applications.
Summary
A magnetic field is produced in an AC motor through the action of the three- phase voltage that is applied. Each of the three phases is 120° from the other phases. From one instant to the next, the magnetic fields combine to produce a magnetic field whose position shifts through a certain angle. At the end of one cycle of alternating current, the magnetic field will have shifted through 360°, or one revolution. Torque in an AC motor is developed through interactions with the rotor and the rotating magnetic field. The rotating magnetic field cuts the bars of the rotor and induces a current in them due to generator action. This induced current will produce a magnetic field around the conductors of the rotor, which will try to line up with the magnetic field of the stator. Slip is the percentage difference between the speed of the rotor and the speed of the rotating magnetic field. In an AC induction motor, as slip increases from zero to ~10%, the torque increases linearly. As the load and slip are increased beyond full-load torque, the torque will reach a maximum value at about 25% slip. If load is increased beyond this point, the motor will stall and come to a rapid stop. The typical induction motor breakdown torque varies from 200 to 300% of full-load torque. Starting torque is the value of torque at 100% slip and is normally 150 to 200% of full-load torque
BIBLOGRAPHY
www.wikipedia.com
www.wiziq.com
www.howstuffworks.com
