Experimental study on the influence of high frequency PWM harmonics on the losses of induction motor

Abstract

For the purpose of studying the influence of high frequency PWM harmonics on the losses of induction motor, this paper first introduces the latest international standard IEC/TS 60034-2-3 for the separation of the losses and the measurement of the efficiency of induction motor under PWM power supply. Then, considering that the skin effect of windings in induction motors under the condition of PWM power supply more apparent, this paper uses the stator AC resistance to replace the stator DC resistance in the IEC/TS 60034-2-3 standard to obtain more accurate separation results. On this basis, an improved method of loss separation for converter-fed induction motor is proposed by using the accurate time-step finite element method to calculate the rotor copper loss under no-load condition which cannot be considered in IEC/TS 60034-2-3 standard. Finally, this method is used to measure and separate the losses of a 5.5 kW converter-fed motor under different operating conditions. The results show that the loss of induction motor which is driven by PWM converter is obviously greater than that of sinusoidal drive, especially under light load or no load condition. The whole no-load losses of the motor driven by PWM converter increases by more than 20.0% compared with that of the sinusoidal driving condition.

Keywords

• Inverter
• Induction motors
• Loss measurement
• Copper loss
• Loss separation