Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

DC Motor

Introduction
 There are 2 types of DC machines:- DC generator and DC motor
 At present its use as a generator is limited because of widespread use of AC power.
 The machine is therefore, extensively used as motor in industry.

Construction
 The machine consists of 2 parts:-
o Stator
- Have poles
- The poles are excited by DC current to produce magnetic fields
o Rotor
- Has a ring-shaped laminated iron-core with slots.
- Coils with several turns are placed in the slots.

Field
Rotor

N S

Stator with poles

Brush

DC Machine Construction

 It has 2 types of windings:-

DC Machine Winding

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

o Armature winding
- Voltage is induced on it
- Placed on the rotor
- Winding arrangement depends on how the coils are connected to form a closed
winding. 2 basic possibilities:-

The armature winding arrangements

(a) Wave winding (b) Lap winding

a) Wave connection
 2 parallel paths regardless no of poles
 Suitable for high voltage, low current DC machine
b) Lap connection
 For a p pole machine, has p parallel path
 Suitable for high current, low voltage DC machine
o Field winding
- Carry dc current to create magnetic field
- Mounted on the poles (stator)
- Subdivided into:-
a) Separately excited winding
 No direct connection between field & armature windings
b) Self-excited winding
 Has a direct connection between field & armature windings
 It can further be subdivided into: shunt, series, compound excitation

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

Principle of Operation
 DC motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy
 Its operation can be described as follows:
o The armature winding is connected to a dc power supply
o Current flows through the armature winding
o At the same time, the field winding is also connected to a dc power supply. (Hence, the
stator becomes an electromagnet).
o Since armature is within a magnetic field, a force is exerted on the windings.
o This force causes the rotor to rotate.
o As the rotor rotates, its winding will cut the flux causing emf to be generated on the
armature winding.
o The induced voltage is called counter emf because its polarity always acts against the
source voltage.

EMF Generated
 The emf generated on DC motor is given by the following equation:-

Zp
EMFgen  N  k g 
60c
Where
Z = No of conductors in the armature circuit
p = No of poles
c = No of parallel path @ no of current path
(c = 2 for wave-winding, c = p for lap-winding)
N = Speed of armature rotation (rpm)
Φ = Useful flux per pole (Wb)

2N
 = rad / s
60

Example 1
A 12-pole dc generator has a wound armature containing of 2880 conductors. Its flux per pole is
0.05 Wb. The armature is turning at a speed of 200 rpm.
a) How many current paths are there in this machine?
b) What is the generated armature voltage of this machine?
c) What is the generated voltage if the machine now has lap winding?

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

Types of DC Motor
 The type of dc machines is classified according to the way in which their fields are excited:
separately excited and self-excited.

Separately Excited Winding

 When the dc field current is supplied by an external source, the machine is said to be
separately excited.
 There is no direct connection between field & armature circuits
 Equivalent circuit for a separately excited dc motor is given as below:

Stator Rotor
Separately excited dc motor

E A  VT  I A R A

Self-Excited Winding
 There is a direct connection between the armature and the field winding.
 The armature winding will provide the current to create the magnetic field.
 It may be classified as:
a) Series excitation
- Field winding is connected in series with the armature winding
b) Shunt excitation
- Field winding is connected in parallel with the armature winding
c) Compound excitation
- Field winding is connected in series & parallel with the armature winding

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

 The equivalent circuits for self-excited DC motors are given as follows:

E A  VT  I A ( R A  R f ) E A  VT  I A R A
Series DC motor Shunt DC motor

E A  VT  I A ( R A  R f 2 )
Compound DC motor

Example 2
Find the armature current and the counter emf for a shunt motor running at 1500 rpm at 51A with a
120 V source, 120  field winding and 0.1  armature resistance.

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

Power Flow Diagram

 Illustrates power flow from input to output
 Represented as a fishbone. The branches indicate losses
 In general, Pin = Pout + losses and the losses are given as follows:

Losses in DC machine

 The power flow diagram

Power flow diagram of series motor

Power flow diagram of shunt motor

Power flow diagram of compound motor

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

 Power equation for DC motor:-

Pin  Pout  losses Total losses = Pca + Pcf + Pμ

Pin = VTIL  input power taken from dc supply

Pconv = EAIA  developed mechanical power
Pconv = Pμ + Pout

Motor Torque
 The general equation for torque is defined as

P 60 P
T 
 2N

2N
Where T- Torque (Nm), N- Speed (rpm), P- Power (W), - rad / s
60
60 Pout
 For load torque (or shaft/net/load torque): Tout 
2N
60 P
 For loss torque: TL 
2N
60 Pm
 For mechanical torque (or induced torque): Tm 
2N

Efficiency
 It is given by:

Pout Pm  P
 
Pin VT I L

Speed Regulation
 Speed regulation in a motor is good if the speed of the motor is relatively constant over its
normal range.
 It is usually expressed as a percentage of full-load speed given by:

N nl  N fl
SR  x100%
N fl

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

Example 3
A 150V shunt motor has the following parameters:-
Ra = 0.50Ω Rf = 150Ω rotational loss = 250 W
On full-load, the line current is 19.5A and the motor runs at 1400 rpm. Determine:
a) The developed power
b) The output power
c) The output torque
d) The efficiency at full-load

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

Starting of DC Motor
 At the instant of start-up, counter emf is zero because the armature is not rotating.
 So, full voltage is applied at this moment. The armature current could then be very high which
can blow fuses & disconnecting itself from the supply.
 It is therefore necessary to insert some resistance in series with armature circuit to limit this
current. This practical arrangement is known as starter.
 There are several types of starter, such as manual starter and automatic starter.

Manual starter for shunt motor

Automatic starter connected to a shunt motor

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 Electrical Power and Machines EPE491

DC Motor Speed Control

 There are three basic methods of controlling the speed of a DC motor:
1. Armature resistance control
- Adding a resistor in series with the armature effectively increases the armature circuit
resistance.
- This results in a reduction of the steady-state speed.
- The method is relatively simple and inexpensive.
- However, there are some drawbacks. By adding a resistance means increase losses;
I2R and reduce the motor’s speed. Therefore, the speed of the motor that has
resistance in the armature circuit is always lower comparing to the motor that do not
have resistance in the armature circuit.
2. Field control
- This method of speed control is by changing the flux.
- To do so we connect a resistance in series with the field winding. The field current is
decreased and the speed increases with a reduction in flux.
- This method also has some disadvantages. One of that is; we can only raise the speed
at which the motor normally runs at a particular load. Another disadvantage is that the
speed is increased without a corresponding reduction in shaft load, so we will be
overloading the motor.
3. Terminal voltage control
- This method of speed control is by changing the terminal voltage of the motor.
- The most frequent method at least for shunt motors where the field winding is
separately excited.
- The voltage control method lowers the speed in a similar fashion as the armature circuit
resistance speed control method. However it does not have its drawbacks. The no-load
speed and full-load speed can be reduced all the way down to zero if desired.
- There are various ways to obtain a variable DC voltage:
a) Ward-Leonard System
- In this system, the armature voltage is controlled by varying the field current of
DC generator. By using this system, the speed of DC motor can be smoothly
varied. Other advantage of the system is it allows the DC motor to run in either
direction by reversing the field current.
b) Solid-state Speed Control
- In recent years, solid-state converters have been used as a replacement for
Ward-Leonard system.
- The converters used are controlled rectifier or choppers.

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