Drives de AC vs.

DC for variable velocity applications; a practical

evaluation guide to decide the best solution.
Bernardo Sáinz, AMI GE, Monterrey, Mexico.

Recent technological developments available for AC drives, have brought many cost
advantages for plenty of variable velocity applications, which could only be solved with DC
motors.

This is specially true in several metallurgical industry applications. Nevertheless, changes

never come alone and they are not for free; the decision process became enormously
complicated. Deciding between AC and DC for a specific case is not a simple issue, and
usually a superficial analysis, doesn’t lead to a clear solution.

Several articles have been written, with the purpose of helping in this decision process, but
they lack information: they only focus on the performance, and they are totally complicated
to understand and to translate into practical situations.

The present article offers an integral approach in which aspects such as performance,
installation complexity, maintenance, maintenance cost, and total project cost, are taken
into consideration.

Additionally, several most commonly used factors, are analyzed from a practical point of
view, in order to evaluate the performance on an AC and DC application and with the
purpose of making them easier to be understood.

AC Vs DC Analysis
PERFORMANCE
AC can have better system responses
AC requires tach for high performance

MAINTENANCE
AC requires lower maintenance.
AC provides better PF and THD.
DC is simpler to troubleshoot.
DC is simpler to replace a motor and retune it.

INSTALLATION
Transformer in AC 20 % less.
AC may require special cable.
AC can provide better motor enclosure with less complicated cooling system
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MEXICO
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(B2900)
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