High-Starting-Torque Synchronous Motors

Synchronous motors with low-resistance squirrel cages for starting duty develop comparatively low values of starting torque. For many applications, such as blowers, air compressors, centrifugal and reciprocating pumps, pulp grinders, and the like, starting torque as low as 30 to 50 percent are quite satisfactory. In certain other installations in which synchronous motors must develop starting torques of about 100 to 250 percent, the design of pole-face winding follows the practices used with induction motors: 1) the use of high-resistance squirrel cages 2) the use of insulated windings in pole-face slots with connections made to slip rings Using high-resistance squirrel cages Applications: crushers and cement mills Effects of increasing the resistance of the squirrel cage of an induction motor: o increasing the starting torque o increasing the full-load slip o decreasing the efficiency As low efficiency is concerned, a high resistance squirrel cage has no effect upon the operating performance of synchronous motor, because, unlike its continuous function in the induction motor, it acts only momentarily.

The use of insulated windings in pole-face slots with connections made to slip rings Applications: ball, rod, and tube mills, mining machinery, gyratory crushers, line shafts in flour mills

The wound-rotor idea is embodied in the so-called simplex type of rotor construction. An insulated three-phase winding is placed in the pole-face slots of salient poles with the ends connected to three slip rings. Brushes riding on the slip rings are then connected to a resistance controller, which is used in exactly the same way as it is in wound-rotor induction motor; after the resistance is cut completely out, when the rotor reaches near synchronism, the phase winding becomes an electrical squirrel cage

The winding and controller resistances are adjusted to values that permit the synchronous motor to start extremely heavy loads.