Electromechanical interaction in rotordynamics of cage induction motors

Abstract

Electromagnetic fields in the air gap of an electric machine produce electromagnetic forces between the rotor and stator. The total force exerted on the rotor due to the eccentric rotor position is called the unbalanced magnetic pull. This eccentricity force is directed roughly over the shortest air gap. At low frequencies, the vibration amplitudes of flexural modes may be large enough to couple the electromagnetic system to the mechanical one. This electromechanical interaction changes the vibration behaviour of the system. The main purpose of this dissertation is to reveal the main rotordynamic consequences induced by the electromechanical interaction in cage induction motors. Another goal is to achieve this by deriving a simple and representative electromechanical rotor model with physical variables and parameters. In this study, a new parametric model was derived for the unbalanced magnetic pull induced by an arbitrary rotor motion in transient operation. The parameters of this model can be determined analytically from the basis of the machine characteristics or estimated numerically as in this study. To estimate the parameters, an efficient numerical method was developed from the analysis of impulse response. The numerical results showed that the simple electromagnetic force model, together with the estimated parameters, predicts the unbalanced magnetic pull fairly accurately. An electromechanical rotor model was derived by combining the Jeffcott rotor model with the simple electromagnetic force model, including two additional variables for the harmonic currents of the rotor cage. Applying this model, the rotordynamic effects of electromechanical interaction were studied. Three induction motors were used in the numerical examples. The results obtained show that the electromechanical interaction may decrease the flexural frequencies of the rotor, induce additional damping or cause rotordynamic instability. These interaction effects are most significant in motors operating at, or near, the first flexural critical speed. Excluding the potential rotordynamic instability, the numerical results indicate that the electromechanical interaction effectively reduces the unbalance response close to the first flexural critical speed. Copyright © VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland 2004.