Academic literature on the topic 'Load Commutated Inverter (LCI) Fed Induction Motor Drives'

This paper proposes time-domain analytical expressions of the instantaneous pulsating torque components in a synchronous machine air gap when supplied by a load-commutated-inverter (LCI) system. The LCI technology is one of the most used variable frequency drives when very high power and low speed are required in applications such as pipeline recompression and decompression, as well as liquefied natural gas compression. In such applications, synchronous motors are used because of their high efficiency resulting from a separated supply of the current to their rotor through the excitation circuit. These applications usually have long and flexible shafts, which are very sensitive to torsional vibration excitation when their natural frequencies interact with any external torque applied to the shaft. A torsional analysis is required by international standards to assess the survivability of the shaft through the overall speed range of the motor. Therefore, the magnitude and frequencies of the motor air-gap torque are needed for such evaluation. The proposed developments are supported by numerical simulations of LCI systems in a large range of operation range. From the simulation results, torque harmonic families are derived and expressed in a parametric form, which confirm the accuracy of the proposed relationships.

This thesis deals with modeling, simulation and implementation of Load Commutated SCR based current source Inverter (LCI) fed squirrel cage induction motor drive with sinusoidal voltage and sinusoidal current. In the proposed system, the induction motor is fed by an LCI. A three level diode clamped voltage source inverter (VSI) is connected at the motor terminal with ac chokes connected in series with it. The VSI currents are controlled in such a manner that it injects the reactive current demanded by the induction motor and the LCI for successful commutation of the SCRs in the LCI. Additionally, it absorbs the harmonic frequency currents to ensure that the induction motor draws sinusoidal current. As a result, the nature of the motor terminal voltage is also sinusoidal. The concept of load commutation of the SCRs in the LCI feeding an induction motor load is explained with necessary waveforms and phasor diagrams. The necessity of reactive compensation by the active filter connected at the motor terminal for the load commutation of the thyristors, is elaborated with the help of analytical equations and phasor diagrams. The requirement of harmonic compensation by the same active filter to achieve sinusoidal motor current and motor voltage, is also described. Finally, to achieve the aforementioned induction motor drive, the VA ratings of the active filter (VSI) and the CSI with respect to VA rating of the motor, are determined theoretically. The proposed drive scheme is simulated under idealized condition. Simulation results show good steady state and dynamic response of the drive system. Load commutation of the SCRs in the LCI and the sinusoidal profile of motor current and voltage, have been demonstrated. As in LCI fed synchronous motor drives, a special mode of operation is required to run up the induction motor from standstill. As the SCRs of the LCI are load commutated, they need motor terminal voltages for commutation. At standstill these voltages are zero. So, a starting strategy has been proposed and adopted to start the motor with the aid of the current controlled VSI to accelerate until the motor terminal voltages are high enough for the commutation of the SCRs in the LCI. The proposed drive is implemented on an experimental setup in the laboratory. The IGBT based three level diode clamped VSI has been fabricated following the design of the standard module in the laboratory. A generalized digital control platform is also developed using a TMS320F2407A DSP. Two, three phase thyristor bridges with necessary firing pulse circuits have been used as the phase controlled rectifier and the LCI respectively. Appropriate protection scheme for such a drive is developed and adopted to operate the drive. Relevant experimental results are presented. They are observed to be in good agreement with the simulation results. The effect of capacitors connected at the output of the LCI in the commutation process of the SCRs in the LCI is studied and analyzed. From the analysis, it is understood that the capacitors form a parallel resonating pair with filter inductor and the motor leakage inductance, which results in an undesired oscillation in the terminal voltage during each of the commutation intervals leading to commutation failure. So, in the final system, the capacitors are removed to eliminate any chance of commutation failure of the SCRs in the LCI. It is shown by experiment that the commutation of the SCRs takes place reliably in the absence of the capacitors also. The commutation process is studied and analyzed without the capacitors to understand the motor terminal voltage waveform of the experimental results.

This thesis deals with modeling, simulation and implementation of Load Commutated SCR based current source Inverter (LCI) fed squirrel cage induction motor drive with sinusoidal voltage and sinusoidal current. In the proposed system, the induction motor is fed by an LCI. A three level diode clamped voltage source inverter (VSI) is connected at the motor terminal with ac chokes connected in series with it. The VSI currents are controlled in such a manner that it injects the reactive current demanded by the induction motor and the LCI for successful commutation of the SCRs in the LCI. Additionally, it absorbs the harmonic frequency currents to ensure that the induction motor draws sinusoidal current. As a result, the nature of the motor terminal voltage is also sinusoidal. The concept of load commutation of the SCRs in the LCI feeding an induction motor load is explained with necessary waveforms and phasor diagrams. The necessity of reactive compensation by the active filter connected at the motor terminal for the load commutation of the thyristors, is elaborated with the help of analytical equations and phasor diagrams. The requirement of harmonic compensation by the same active filter to achieve sinusoidal motor current and motor voltage, is also described. Finally, to achieve the aforementioned induction motor drive, the VA ratings of the active filter (VSI) and the CSI with respect to VA rating of the motor, are determined theoretically. The proposed drive scheme is simulated under idealized condition. Simulation results show good steady state and dynamic response of the drive system. Load commutation of the SCRs in the LCI and the sinusoidal profile of motor current and voltage, have been demonstrated. As in LCI fed synchronous motor drives, a special mode of operation is required to run up the induction motor from standstill. As the SCRs of the LCI are load commutated, they need motor terminal voltages for commutation. At standstill these voltages are zero. So, a starting strategy has been proposed and adopted to start the motor with the aid of the current controlled VSI to accelerate until the motor terminal voltages are high enough for the commutation of the SCRs in the LCI. The proposed drive is implemented on an experimental setup in the laboratory. The IGBT based three level diode clamped VSI has been fabricated following the design of the standard module in the laboratory. A generalized digital control platform is also developed using a TMS320F2407A DSP. Two, three phase thyristor bridges with necessary firing pulse circuits have been used as the phase controlled rectifier and the LCI respectively. Appropriate protection scheme for such a drive is developed and adopted to operate the drive. Relevant experimental results are presented. They are observed to be in good agreement with the simulation results. The effect of capacitors connected at the output of the LCI in the commutation process of the SCRs in the LCI is studied and analyzed. From the analysis, it is understood that the capacitors form a parallel resonating pair with filter inductor and the motor leakage inductance, which results in an undesired oscillation in the terminal voltage during each of the commutation intervals leading to commutation failure. So, in the final system, the capacitors are removed to eliminate any chance of commutation failure of the SCRs in the LCI. It is shown by experiment that the commutation of the SCRs takes place reliably in the absence of the capacitors also. The commutation process is studied and analyzed without the capacitors to understand the motor terminal voltage waveform of the experimental results.

This thesis deals with a new solution for medium voltage drives. Load Commutated Inverter (LCI) fed synchronous motor drive is a popular solution for high power drive applications. Though the induction machine is more rugged and cheaper compared to the synchronous machine, LCI fed induction motor drive solution is not available. The basic advantage of a synchronous machine over an induction machine is the fact that the synchronous machine can operate at leading power factor. Due to this property load commutation of SCR switches of the LCI is achievable for synchronous machine. On the contrary an induction machine always draws lagging power factor current; this makes it unsuitable as a drive motor for LCI technology. In this thesis a new LCI fed induction motor drive configuration is developed as an alternative for synchronous motor drives. A new variant of six phase induction motor is proposed in this context. The machine is named as Active Reactive Induction Machine (ARIM). The ARIM contains two sets of three-phase windings with isolated neutral. Both the windings have a common axis. One winding carries the active power and can be wound for higher voltage (say 11kV). The other winding supplies the total reactive power of the machine and can be wound for lower voltage (say 2.2 kV). The rotor is a standard squirrel cage. High power induction machines usually demand lesser magnitude of reactive power compared to the total power rating of the machine ( 20% ). Therefore excitation winding has a smaller fraction of the total machine rating compared to the power winding. A VSI with an LC filter supplies reactive power to the ARIM through the excitation winding and ensures leading power factor at the power winding. This is similar to the excitation control of the LCI fed synchronous machine. The direct VSI connection is possible due to the lower voltage rating for the excitation winding. In this way, the VSI voltage rating does not limit the highest motor voltage that can be handled. An LCI supplies the real power into the ARIM from the power winding. The LCI currents are quasi square wave in shape. Therefore they have rich low order harmonic content. They cause 6th and 12th harmonic torque pulsations in the machine. This is a problem for the LCI fed synchronous machine drive. In the proposed drive, the VSI can compensate these low frequency m.m.f. harmonics inside the machine air gap to remove torque pulsation and rotor harmonic losses. The advantage of the proposed topology is that no transformer is required to drive an 11kV machine. It is always desirable to feed sinusoidal voltage and current to both the power winding and the excitation winding. To address this problem, a second configuration is proposed. A low power three-level VSI is connected in shunt at the power winding with the proposed ARIM drive as discussed above. This VSI compensates the low frequency harmonic currents to achieve sinusoidal motor currents at the motor winding. This VSI acts as a shunt active filter and compensates for the lower order harmonics injected by the LCI. The proposed topologies have LC filters to maintain sinusoidal motor voltages and currents by absorbing the VSI switching frequency components. But the motor terminal voltage oscillates at system resonant frequency due to the presence of LC filters. These resonant components in the terminal voltages are required to be eliminated for smooth terminal voltages and safe load commutation of the thyristors. In this thesis a simple active damping method is proposed to mitigate these issues. The proposed topologies are experimentally verified with an ARIM with 415 V power winding and 220 V excitation winding. The control is carried out on a digital platform having a TMS 320LF 2407A DSP processor and an ALTERA CYCLONE FPGA processor. Results from the prototype experimental drive are presented to show the feasibility and performance of the proposed drive configurations.

This thesis deals with a new solution for medium voltage drives. Load Commutated Inverter (LCI) fed synchronous motor drive is a popular solution for high power drive applications. Though the induction machine is more rugged and cheaper compared to the synchronous machine, LCI fed induction motor drive solution is not available. The basic advantage of a synchronous machine over an induction machine is the fact that the synchronous machine can operate at leading power factor. Due to this property load commutation of SCR switches of the LCI is achievable for synchronous machine. On the contrary an induction machine always draws lagging power factor current; this makes it unsuitable as a drive motor for LCI technology. In this thesis a new LCI fed induction motor drive configuration is developed as an alternative for synchronous motor drives. A new variant of six phase induction motor is proposed in this context. The machine is named as Active Reactive Induction Machine (ARIM). The ARIM contains two sets of three-phase windings with isolated neutral. Both the windings have a common axis. One winding carries the active power and can be wound for higher voltage (say 11kV). The other winding supplies the total reactive power of the machine and can be wound for lower voltage (say 2.2 kV). The rotor is a standard squirrel cage. High power induction machines usually demand lesser magnitude of reactive power compared to the total power rating of the machine ( 20% ). Therefore excitation winding has a smaller fraction of the total machine rating compared to the power winding. A VSI with an LC filter supplies reactive power to the ARIM through the excitation winding and ensures leading power factor at the power winding. This is similar to the excitation control of the LCI fed synchronous machine. The direct VSI connection is possible due to the lower voltage rating for the excitation winding. In this way, the VSI voltage rating does not limit the highest motor voltage that can be handled. An LCI supplies the real power into the ARIM from the power winding. The LCI currents are quasi square wave in shape. Therefore they have rich low order harmonic content. They cause 6th and 12th harmonic torque pulsations in the machine. This is a problem for the LCI fed synchronous machine drive. In the proposed drive, the VSI can compensate these low frequency m.m.f. harmonics inside the machine air gap to remove torque pulsation and rotor harmonic losses. The advantage of the proposed topology is that no transformer is required to drive an 11kV machine. It is always desirable to feed sinusoidal voltage and current to both the power winding and the excitation winding. To address this problem, a second configuration is proposed. A low power three-level VSI is connected in shunt at the power winding with the proposed ARIM drive as discussed above. This VSI compensates the low frequency harmonic currents to achieve sinusoidal motor currents at the motor winding. This VSI acts as a shunt active filter and compensates for the lower order harmonics injected by the LCI. The proposed topologies have LC filters to maintain sinusoidal motor voltages and currents by absorbing the VSI switching frequency components. But the motor terminal voltage oscillates at system resonant frequency due to the presence of LC filters. These resonant components in the terminal voltages are required to be eliminated for smooth terminal voltages and safe load commutation of the thyristors. In this thesis a simple active damping method is proposed to mitigate these issues. The proposed topologies are experimentally verified with an ARIM with 415 V power winding and 220 V excitation winding. The control is carried out on a digital platform having a TMS 320LF 2407A DSP processor and an ALTERA CYCLONE FPGA processor. Results from the prototype experimental drive are presented to show the feasibility and performance of the proposed drive configurations.