Alternators

Advantage of Stationary Armature

Advantage of having stationary armature (and a rotating field system) are:
I. The output current can be led directly from fixed terminals on the stator (or armature windings) to the load circuit,
without having to pass it through brush contacts.
II. It is easier to insulate stationary armature winding for high AC voltages, which may have as high a value as 30
kV or more.

III. The sliding contacts i.e., slip-rings are transferred to the low-voltage, low-power DC field circuit which can,
therefore, be easily insulated.
IV. The armature windings can be more easily braced to prevent any deformation, which could be produced by the
mechanical stresses set up a result of short-circuit current and the centrifugal forces brought into play.
V. Due to simple and robust construction of the rotor, higher speed of rotating DC field is possible. This increase
the output obtainable from a machine of given dimensions.
 Alternators
Details of Construction Stator Frame
Stator Frame:
• A type of casting (yoke) that holds the armaturewinding.

Stator Core:
• Build with laminated sheet steels.
• The core is laminated to minimize eddy current loss. Stator Core
• It has slots for housing the armature conductions lie along
the inner periphery of the core.

Laminated
Sheets
 Alternators
Details of Construction
Stator Core (cont.):
• Different shapes of the armature slots (i) Wide-Open (ii) Semi-Close (iii)Closed

Wide-Open Semi-Close Closed

Wide-Open:
• Easy placement of form wound coils but distortion in flux distribution which produces ripple in the voltage
waveform

Semi-Close:
• Also easier installation or placement of coils
• Do not distort air-gap flux, but Do Not allow form wound coil
Closed:
• No distortion in flux distribution but increases the inductance of thewindings
• Winding cost is high, placement and connections of windings are difficult
 Alternators
Details of Construction
Rotor:
• Rotor construction is of two types, namely
i. Salient (or projecting) pole type
ii. Non-salient (or cylindrical) pole type Salient pole type

Salient pole type Non-Salient pole type

Salient (or projecting) pole type:

• Low and medium speed alternators (120 -400 rpm) driven by diesel engines or hydraulic turbines
• Used in generators with large diameters and short axial length
• Made with laminated sheet steels and field winding consists of rectangular copperstrips
• It would cause an excessive amount of windage and friction loss if operated at high speed and would tend
to produce noise
• Construction cannot be made strong enough to withstand mechanical stresses that would have been
subjected to the rotor at higher speed.
 Alternators
Details of Construction

Salient pole type Non-Salient pole type

Non-salient (or cylindrical) pole type:

• Rotor windings are placed on the axially construction slots
• Rotor is made of smooth solid forged-steel structure where rotor windings slots are placed axially along
the outer periphery (i.e. parallel to the shaft)
• Used in high speed turbo alternators, run at very high speeds (1500 – 3000rpm)
• Construction is robust with increased mechanical strengths and provides less noisy operation at high
speed
• Flux distribution around periphery is nearly a sine wave hence a better waveform is obtained compare to
salient pole type
• Flux density is maximum on the polar central line and gradually falls away on eitherside
• To avoid excessive peripheral velocity, these type of rotors have small diameters (about 1 meter or so)
• Hence turbo alternators are characterized by small diameter and long axial (rotor)length
• These type of construction gives better balance, quieter operation and less windagelosses
 Alternators
Damper Windings
• Most of the alternators have their pole-shoes slotted for
receiving copper bars of a grid or damper winding (also
known as squirrel-cage winding)
• The copper bars are short-circuited at both ends by
heavy copper rings.
• These dampers are useful in preventing the hunting
(momentary speed fluctuations) in generators and are
needed in synchronous motors to provide the starting
torque.
• Turbo-generator usually do not have these damper
windings (except in special case to assist in
synchronizing) because the solid field-poles themselves
act as efficient dampers.
• Damper winding does not carry current because rotor
runs at synchronous speed
• The damper winding also tends to maintain balanced 3-
phase voltage under unbalanced load conditions
 Alternators
Speed and Frequency
• Consider the armature conductor marked X situated at the
center of a N-pole rotating in clockwise direction.
• The conductor being situated at the place of maximum flux
density will have maximum EMF induced in it.
• The direction of induced EMF is given by Fleming’s Right Hand
rule, where the thumb indicates the direction of the motion of
the conductor relative to the field.
• To an observer stationed on the clockwise revolving poles, the
conductor would seem to be rotating anti-clockwise.
• Hence, thumb should be point to the left and the direction of
the induced EMF is downwards.
• When the conductor is in the inter pole gap, as at point A, it
has minimum EMF induced in it, because flux density is
minimum there.
• Again, when it is at the center of a S-pole, it has maximum
EMF induced in it because flux density at B is maximum. But Fleming’s Right Hand Rule
the direction of the EMF when conduction is over a N-pole is
opposite to that when it is over a S-pole.
 Alternators
Speed and Frequency (contd.)
• Since one cycle of EMF is produced when a pair of poles
passes past a conductor, the number of cycles of EMF
produced in one revolution of the rotor is equal to the number
of pair of poles.
No. of cycle/revolution = P and No. of revolution/sec.= N
2 60

Frequency = P × N = PN Hz
2 60 120
Or, f = PN
120

• Where, P= Total Number of Poles

N= Speed of the rotor in rpm
f= Frequency of generated EMF in Hz

• To produce a frequency of 60 Hz, the alternator will

have to run at the following speeds:

Fleming’s Right Hand Rule

 References
1B. L. Theraja, A. K. Theraja, “A Textbook of ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY in SI Units Volume II, AC & DC Machines”,S.
Chand & Company Ltd., (Multicolour illustrativeEdition).

2A. F. Puchstein, T. C. Lloyd, A.G. Conrad, “Alternating Current Machines”, © 1942, Asia Publishing House, Third Edition
(Fully revised and corrected Edition 2006-07).

3Jack Rosenblatt, M. Harold Friedman, “Direct and Alternating Current Machinery”, Indian Edition (2nd Edition), CBS
Publishers & Distributors.

4A. E. Fitzgerald, Charles Kingsley, Jr. Stephen D. Umans, Electric Machinery, 5thEditionin SI units, ©1992 Metric Edition,
McGraw Hill Book Company.

5 Irving L. Kosow, Electrical Machinery and Transformers, Second Edition, Prentice –Hall India Pvt. Limited.

Acknowledgement
Ahmed Mortuza Saleque