JORDAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Faculty of engineering

Electrical Engineering Department

EE 306 – Electrical Engineering Laboratory

Experiment Of: Synchronous Motor

Experiment Number: 10

Experiment Date: 28/4/2015

Section No: 1

‫محمد أنس عبدالحميد حجازي‬ ‫اسم الطالب‬

20132025018 ‫الرقم الجامعي‬
‫أنس الكايد – خالد حنتش – جميل أبو الهيجا‬ ‫الزمالء‬

Submission date: 5/5/2015

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Objectives:
 Understand the basic principles of operation of the synchronous machine, especially as
a motor.
 Get familiar with reading the name plate of this machine.
 See the synchronous motor operating characteristics.
 Make some calculations to see the performance of this machine and its output power.

Components & Equipment:

 3 phase AC power supply.
 3 phase Y- connection synchronous motor.
 Base frame
 Eddy current brake
 2 ammeter
 1 voltmeter
 2 wattmeter
 Speed meter

Background Theory & Mathematical Expressions:

A synchronous motor literally operates “in time with” or “in synchronism with” the power supply
system. Due to the fact the synchronous motors are fitted with special operating characteristics,
industries are more and more using such motors. Included in the main reasons for the industries to
specify SYNCHRONOUS MOTORS to drive a wide range of applications are the high efficiency and the
fact they are suitable to operate as synchronous compensating machines for power supply factor
correction. In addition to that, these motors also feature high torque, constant speed under load
variation, along with low maintenance cost allowing major economical and operational advantages to
end users.

Operation Principle
Stator and stator winding (armature) of synchronous motors are identical to components of three phase
induction motors. Identical to induction motors, the current that goes through the stator winding
generates a rotating magnetic flow that circulates around the air gap. Stator rotating field - When the
current goes through the coil, a magnetic field is generated which is based on coil axis and is
proportional to the current value.

Synchronous Speed
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The motor synchronous speed (rpm) is defined by the rotating field speed that depends on the motor
pair of poles (p) and on the power supply frequency (f). The stator winding can consist of one or more
pairs of poles that are distributed alternatively (one “north” and another “south”) along the magnetic
core outer side. The rotating field goes through a pair of poles (p) at each cycle. Considering the winding
has poles or pair of poles, the field speed will then be:

The synchronous motor rotor is built with a number of poles corresponding to the stator winding
number of poles. Under normal operation, there is no relative movement between rotor poles and
stator magnetic flow, that is, they are in perfect synchronism.

As a result, there is no induction of electric voltage into the rotor by the mutual flow and then there is
no excitation originated from the AC power supply. Depending on the type of rotor used (cylindrical
or salient pole), the pole coils can be built with insulated copper wire turns or with copper bars. The
field excitation is done through a DC system. When going through the field winding, the poles are
polarized magnetically becoming alternatively north pole and then south pole. The DC excitation can be
applied to the field through the brush holders and slip rings, or through a brushless system and through
electronic control (brushless).

Advantages
Due to their special operating characteristics, synchronous motor applications usually result in
economical and operational advantages to end users. Included in the economical advantages of using
synchronous motors are: -

 High efficiency
 Power factor correction
In addition to that, there are other specific operational advantages of using synchronous motors as
follows:

 Special starting characteristics

 Constant speed under load variation
 Reduced maintenance cost
Torque
A synchronous motor must be always designed taking into account driven load characteristics, in
addition to torque’s and inertia.

a) Starting torque: It is the torque that the motor must supply to drive the standstill load resistant
torque, that is, it is the load starting torque.

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b) Pull-in torque: It is the torque that the motor must supply to reach the correct speed, where the
excitation field application will take the motor to the synchronism (pull-in torque).

c) Pull-out torque: It is the torque that the motor must supply to keep the motor under synchronism in
case of momentary overloads with rated excitation.

Inertia
When driving high inertia loads, synchronous motors are designed in larger frame sizes so as to meet
acceleration conditions. The time period the motor takes to accelerate causes amortisseur winding
overheating. Therefore, this motor must be designed in such a way to meet the starting conditions. The
correct load inertia definition, associated with motor and load torque analysis are quite important
allowing this motor to meet starting and acceleration conditions.

Starting
The amortisseur winding, that operates as a squirrel cage of an induction motor, is intended to
guarantee synchronous motor starting and acceleration. This way, starting and pull-in torque’s vary with
the square of the applied voltage, and the starting current is proportional to the applied voltage, exactly
as on induction motors.

A synchronous motor starts exactly like an induction motor and then it accelerates the load up to the
point where the motor torque becomes the same as the load resistant torque. Usually this point occurs
with 95% of the synchronous speed or above that, and on this condition, the excitation voltage is
applied to the motor, and the rotor synchronizes, that is, it will accelerate the combined rotor and
motor inertia plus the load inertia up to precise synchronous speed. Driven load characteristics will
determine acceleration and synchronism conditions. On high resistant torque loads, the amortisseur
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winding must make the motor and load torque accelerate at a time period higher than that for a shorter
resistant torque.

Asynchronous Starting
The main starting method applied on synchronous motor starting is the asynchronous starting through a
squirrel cage with the short-circuited winding rotor or connected to a resistance, usually called starting
resistance or discharge resistance. Through asynchronous starting, the rotor accelerates at a speed very
close to the synchronous speed, with a slight slip in reference to the rotating field. On this point, a direct
current is applied to the rotor winding and then taking the motor to synchronism.

Construction:

 Frame - It is mainly intended to support and protect the lamination core and stator
winding.
 Wound stator - Consisting of static magnetic parts, the wound stator includes the silicon
lamination core and the stator winding. The last one operates as AC power supply to
generate the rotating magnetic field.
 Lamination core - Consisting of silicon steel lamination of low losses, pressed, and the
set is fastened through metallic bars or a bar-designed system.
 Exciter - It is intended to supply magnetizing current to the motor field winding. The
brushless exciter consists of rotor, stator, rectifer bridge and discharge circuit. Tthe
static exciter consists of slip ring and brushes and depends on an external source to
power the motor field.
 Rotor - Depending on motor constructive characteristics and on the application, rotor
can be built with cylindrical or salient poles. The rotating active parts include rotor ring,
field winding and amortisseur winding. The field poles are magnetized through the
exciter direct current or directly through slip rings and brushes; they gear themselves
magnetically by the air gap and rotate in synchronism with the stator rotating field. The
synchronous motor rotor fitted with salient poles consists of shaft, polar ring and poles.
The poles are built with laminated steel plates that are fixed with steel bar and welded
on the ends. The field coils are constructed with enameled copper wires or flat copper
bars.

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Procedure:

1. Connect the circuit above.

2. Increase the voltage supply to 300v.
3. Then we look to see the direction of rotation.
4. After that we turn on the DC field supply and note the speed.
5. To reverse the direction of rotation we switch off the power supply and replace
the connections of any two phase of the AC supply and restart the motor.
6. Load characteristics: turn on the DC supply for the eddy current brake and
increase the load torque in steps of 0.2 N.m and record the armature current,
field current, the two wattmeter readings, and the speed.
Expectations:
 Want to see the amortisseur winding effect on starting and accelerating the motor.
 Hope to understand the work of excitation current on the motor to keep the motor at
synchronism regardless loading.
 Want to understand why we make Y-connection in the synchronous motor case.

References:
 WEG industries co. _ synchronous motor catalog www.weg.net
 Principles of electric machines and power electronics chapter 6 : P. C. Sen
 NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) website
 www.howstuffworks.com
 Our lab manual
Experimental outcomes:
ns=1500 rpm f=50 Hz

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part 1
V=300v
No load 0.4 N.m
If Ia If Ia
0 0.67 0 0.55
0.1 0.46 0.1 0.49
0.15 0.32 0.15 0.36
0.2 0.21 0.2 0.28
0.25 0.17 0.27 0.18
0.3 0.16 0.3 0.18
0.35 0.18 0.35 0.2
0.4 0.27 0.4 0.29

Ia vs If
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
no-load
Ia (A)

0.4
0.4 N.m
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45
If (A)

Pi (w) If (A) Ia (A) T (N.m) N (rpm) Vi (v) Pout η

70 0.4 0.25 0 1500 300 0 0
120 0.38 0.26 0.2 1500 300 31.3 0.260833
170 0.38 0.32 0.5 1500 300 78.25 0.460294
210 0.38 0.38 0.8 1500 300 125.2 0.59619
270 0.38 0.46 1 1500 300 156.5 0.57963
290 0.38 0.5 1.2 1500 300 187.8 0.647586

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 T vs n
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
T N.m

T vs n
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 2400 2600 2800 3000
n rpm

pout vs η
200
180
160
140
120
100 pout vs
pout

80
60
40
20
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
η

Discussion and Experimental results:

 ω=2*π*n/60
ω=2*π*1500/60= 156.5 rad/s
 Slip S= (n-ns)/ns=0
 Pout= T*ω
Ex:
 Pout=0.5*156.5= 78.25 w
 Efficiency η=pout/pin
ex:
η=78.25/170=0.46=46%

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in part 2 we plot the relation between Ia & If, and it must be V-shape. But unfortunately our data are not
enough to make that clear.

Conclusions:
 Synchronous motor is a machine take power from 3 phase supply to convert is to
mechanical power with valuable torque.
 Speed of this machine is constant no matter how much loaded and this speed equal to
the synchronous speed.
 Synchronous motor has losses in power from its windings (in stator and in the rotor in
addition to the losses in the air gab) in addition to the losses in the excitation winding.
 There are some problems in our calculations so we can’t plot the all characteristics.
Expectation:
 We see the synchronism of this machine and how it remains on a constant
speed.
 We saw the relation of the armature current with the excitation current and how
the armature first decrease and then increase.
 We see the effect of load on the armature current.

Questions:
1. When the armature current decrease with increasing the excitation, that’s called under
excitation operating and the pf is less than 1. But when the armature current increase
with increasing the excitation, that’s called over excitation operating and the pf is more
than 1.
2. Yes, it is increasing with increasing If.
3. High efficiency
Power factor correction
5. no

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