Losses in D.C.

Machine

 Copper Losses or Electrical Losses

Currents flowing through windings produce ohmic losses (i.e. I2R losses). Copper loss occurs in
armature winding, field winding and brush contacts.

1. Armature current losses = Ia2Ra, where Ia is Armature current and Ra is Armature Resistance.
These losses are about 30% of total full-load losses.

2. Copper losses in the shunt field of a shunt machine =Ish2Rsh where Ish is the current in the shunt
field and Rsh is the resistance of the shunt field winding. The shunt regulating resistance is
included in Rsh.

3. Copper loss in the series field of a series machine = Ise2Rse where Ise is the current through the
series field winding and Rse is the resistance of the series field winding.

4. In a compound machine, both shunt and series field losses occur. There losses are about 20% of
full load losses.

There is a power loss at the brush contacts between the copper commutator and the carbon brushes.

 Core Losses or Iron Losses

Since the current in the armature winding is alternating at a frequency f, the flux produced is also
alternating. Some of this flux also enters the pole cores. The magnetic loss, therefore, mainly occurs in
the armature core. These losses also called magnetic losses. These are of two types viz. Hysteresis and
Eddy-current losses. Since DC machines are usually operated at constant speed and constant flux
density, these losses are almost constant. These are about 20% of full-load losses.

 Mechanical Losses

 losses associated with mechanical effects: friction (friction of the bearings) and windage (friction
between the moving parts of the machine and the air inside the casing).

 Stray Losses

 losses that cannot be classified in any of the previous categories. These are the miscellaneous
losses that result from such factors as (i) the distortion of flux because of Armature reaction, (ii)
short circuit currents in the coil, undergoing commutation etc. These losses are very difficult to
determine. The indeterminate nature of the stray-load loss makes it necessary to assign
reasonable value. For most machines stray losses are taken by convention to be 1% of full load
output power.