JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY.

DEPARTMENT: ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS DEPARTMENT

COURSE: ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

UNIT NAME: MACHINE DRIVES

UNIT CODE: EEE2513

LECTURER: Mr. Weldon Korir

ASSIGNMENT

Kamau Charles Munene EN271-0489/2015

APPLICATION OF DC MACHINES.
DC machines are electromechanical device used to convert electrical energy into mechanical
energy or vice versa. DC machines only operate using DC power however electrical energy is
generated in alternating current. Therefore, the use of DC machines very limited. The alternating
current generated first is converted into DC by the rectifiers.

The DC machine used to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy is known as DC
motor. The DC machine used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy is the DC
generator. The same machine can be used either as a motor or generator depending on the
direction of armature current.

Applications of DC Motors

The series motors are used in the application where high starting torque is necessary and speed
variation is possible. These areas include traction, hoists and lifts, crane, rolling mills and
convectors. The shunt motors are used in the application where starting torque required is not
severe and running on the constant speed. The various applications of DC shunt motor are in
lathe machines, centrifugal pumps, fans, blowers, conveyors, lifts, weaving machine, spinning
machines.

Cumulative compound motors have high starting torque and can be operated even at no loads as
they run at a moderately high speed at no load. Therefore, cumulative compound motors are used
in elevators, rolling mills, punches, shears and planers. In differential compound motors, speed
increases with increase in load which leads to unstable operation.

The DC motors are divided into three categories series motors, shunt motors and compound
motors.

The small DC machines whose ratings are in fractional kilowatt are mainly used as control
device such in techno generators for speed sensing and in servo motors for positioning and
tracking.
 Applications of DC Generators

Separately Excited DC Generators are used in laboratories for testing because they have a wide
range of voltage output. They are also used as a supply source of DC motors. DC shunt-wound
generators are used for lighting purposes, charge batteries and for providing excitation to the
alternators. DC series wound generators are used in DC locomotives for regenerative braking for
providing field excitation current. They are also used as a booster in distribution networks. Over
compounded cumulative generators are used in lighting and heavy power supply. In distribution
systems flat compounded generators are used as boosters. Differentially compounded generators
are mainly used for arc welding purpose.

The DC generators are classified as Separately excited DC generator, Shunt-wound, and

SeriesWound generator.

MICROPROCESSOR CONTROL IN AC MACHINE DRIVES.

It is an electronic device containing billions of transistors fabricated into one integrated circuit. It

executes instructions, calculate them and store the results. AC electric drives are used to control

the speed of AC machines. It contains electric motor, transfer mechanism, electrical energy

converter and a control system. Electric drives usually use automatic control where there are

feedbacks for different factors including currents, voltages, velocity, acceleration and torque.

Microprocessors enables us to use techniques such as pulse-width modulators, timers,

analoguedigital converter which makes drive control easy. Microprocessor makes use of

programmable controller functions and supervision by help of commands of special functions.

This guarantees a flexible speed regulation and motor protection. When overexcited,

synchronous motors operate with leading power factors.

 Figure 1.Microprocessor control of speed of an electric motor with the help of converters.

AC drives can either be controlled by hardware control or software control.

Current source inverter system

This method supplies a motor with a current regulated in phase-controlled converter. When it

serves to drive an induction motor, an equivalent circuit study reveals that the motor operates on

the unstable portion of the torque-speed relationship to ensure non-saturated condition. This

system contains the slip frequency of the motor controls dc link current. The control dc link

current, which inputs to the microprocessor are the reference speed, actual speed and dc link

current, with the outputs, the converter gating angle and the inverter frequency.

The flow chart below shows the systematic way microprocessor controls the speed of an Ac
motor.
 Figure 2. Microprocessor Control of Speed of AC motor

The main program first initializes the memory. The reference speed is then read from the CRT

terminal and the speed and current from the input buffer. The microprocessor then calculates the

converter gating angle and inverter frequency throughout the sampling time. The ISR then reads

the speed and current from the CTCI and save them in the input buffer. The non-linear

relationship between the dc link current and the slip frequency can be implemented by the look-

up table. Two controllers are used in this system, the speed controller and the current controller.

P, PI, PD, and PID controllers may as well be used. They can either be implement in position

form or speed form.

Speed form is preferred because it occupies less memory.

Figure 3: Microprocessor based control system of a CSI fed self-controlled synchronous motor.

The microprocessor performs the main functions of monitoring and control of the system

variables to obtain the desired characteristics. It receives information on the rotor position and

processes it to control the firing of the inverter. It must be able to use software and should have

necessary hardware to achieve feedback configurations of the control. Therefore, it should

perform the generation of necessary feedback signals, necessary controllers, limiters and function

generators using look-up tables. The controllers must be software oriented so that they can be

readily modified. Ensures commutation of the inverter at low speeds where the machine voltages

are not applicable.

Microprocessor caries out commutation at each state of the reference signals when the motor is

starting. Should receive data concerning the system variables, stator and field currents, and
processes them to issue the desired control signals to the rectifier and inverter to achieve the

desired performance at all operating conditions. The link current control is obtained by

controlling the firing angle of the line side. The firing angle control with proper synchronization

with line voltage and with respect to the natural firing instant may be obtained by implementing

the method described above with the control of dual converters. It processes the information from

the rotor position sensor to determine the speed, which is one of the feedback signals.

Therefore, we can conclude that on inclusion of microprocessor into the AC drive control, apart

from preciseness and speed improvement, the following changes are notable. Commutation

failure is prevented. There is improvement of power factor. Torque pulsations under the load

conditions are reduced. The ripple content of the dc current also decreases. The maximum power

output was increased by simultaneous control of the field current to compensate for armature

reaction. This

improves the overload capacity of the rotor.

References

Burkov, A. T., Valinsky, O. S., Evstaf’ev, A. M., Maznev, A. S., & Tretyakov, A. V. (2019).

Modern locomotive traction drive control systems. Russian Electrical Engineering, 90(10),

692695.

Krishnan, R. (2017). Switched reluctance motor drives: modeling, simulation, analysis, design,

and applications. CRC press.