NAMIBIA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ELECTRIC DRIVES 415 (ETD811S)

Laboratory Report 3

Design and Simulation of a three-phase synchronous motor

drive

Name: Kawana Isaya

Student Number: 215057090
Program: BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING IN POWER ELECTRICAL (08BEEP)

Due date: 15 June 2021

Lecturer: Mr. Pradeep Kumar

Lab Technician: Mr. Penti

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES..................................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND THEORY.............................................................................................3
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES.....................................................................................................................4
RESULTS(SIMULATION)................................................................................................................................5
ANALYSIS OF RESULTS.................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................10

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OBJECTIVES
The given laboratory experiment had four primary objectives with the aim of giving students good
understanding of the design and simulation of a three-phase synchronous motor drive.

Primary objectives:
 Learning how to initialise a drive from the Load Flow option of the Powergui to initialise
the machine to start simulation in steady state.
 Modelling and simulating a synchronous machine as a drive in Matlab/Simulink.
 Investigating the effect of mechanical power on the load angle and synchronous speed.
 Obtaining and displaying visual speed, load angle, electrical output power & phase current of
the drive measurements in Matlab/Simulink.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND THEORY

Synchronous machines can be described as AC machines with a field circuit that is fed with an external
DC source, these machines run at synchronous speed. Synchronous machines have two main parts, a
stationary part known as stator and a rotating part known as rotor. A synchronous electric motor refers
to an AC motor in which, at steady state, the rotation of the shaft is synchronized with the frequency of
the supply current. The rotation period is exactly equal to an integral number of AC cycles. Synchronous
motors contain multiphase AC electromagnets on the stator of the motor that generate a magnetic field,
which rotates in time with the oscillations of the line current. The rotor with permanent magnets or
electromagnets turns in step with the stator field at the same rate and as a result, provides the second
synchronized rotating magnet field of any AC motor. A synchronous motor is only considered doubly fed
if is supplied with independently excited multiphase AC electromagnets on both the rotor and stator. In
this motor, three-phase power is supplied to the stator while the rotor is fed from a DC source for
excitation of the field winding.

Synchronous motors and induction motors are the most widely used types of AC motor. The difference
between the two types is that the synchronous motor rotates in exact synchronism with the line
frequency. The synchronous motor does not rely on current induction to produce the rotor's magnetic
field. By contrast, the induction motor requires "slip", the rotor must rotate slightly slower than the AC
current alternations, to induce current in the rotor winding. Synchronous motors are more expensive
than induction motors but they offer the advantage of higher efficiency at high power. Thus,
synchronous motors are used for power generation and large motor drives. Because synchronous
motors are fitted with special operating characteristics, industries are increasingly using such motors.

Synchronous motors have high efficiency and they can be operated as synchronous compensating
machines for power supply and power factor correction, therefore their use in industries is increasing. In
addition to this, these motors also feature high torque, constant speed under load variation, low
maintenance cost resulting in major economical and operational advantages to consumers.

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EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES
1. Students made use of Simulink to open the drives library and copy the Synchronous Machine SI
Fundamental’ block model into their design window. The motor parameters should be set as
follows:

• Nominal power = 112 kVA.

• Rated phase voltage 440V (Input the line voltage).

• Initial electrical output power = -50kW and a corresponding mechanical power of 48.9kW.

• Nominal frequency = 60Hz.

• Rotor type: salient pole.

• Stator parameters: Rs (0.26Ω), LI (1.14mH), Lmd (13.7mH) and Lmq (11mH).

• Field parameters: Rf (0.13Ω) and Lf (2.1mH).

• Inertia (24.9), Friction factor (0) and pole pairs (2).

• Preset model: No preset model.

• Field Voltage 17.88V.

2. Three-phase source

• Phase voltage 440V (Input the line voltage).

• Connection: Yn.

• Frequency: 60Hz.

• Rated power: 10 MVA

• Source resistance: 0.58Ω.

• Source inductance: 21.8H.

3. Mechanical power Input step

• Step time: 0.1s

• Initial value: -48863.7 W.

• Final value: -60000 W.

• Sample time: 0

4. Current measurement

• Inserting the inbuilt current measurement block to measure the phase current and force it to be
displayed on the oscilloscope through another function block having this expression:
sqrt(u[1]^2+u[2]^2)/sqrt(2). Which they put between the current bus selector and the oscilloscope.

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 5. Simulation

• Continuous simulation

• Set the machine to initialise through load flow.

• Finally, they obtained the following graphs, which are later on displayed in the results section:
Phase currents, Load angle, Speed in rad/s and output electrical power in kW. NB: to obtain
speed in rads/s, incorporate a gain block between the bus selector and the oscilloscope having a
magnitude of 30/pi. Similarly, insert another one having a magnitude of 0.001 to obtain the
graph having kW values.

RESULTS(SIMULATION)
Circuit in Simulink

Figure 1: Final design in Simulink

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Generated output signals

Figure 2: Graphs of Phase Current (A rms), Speed (rpm), Load angle (deg) and Output power(Kw)

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 Figure 3: Phase currents

Figure 4: Load flow and machine initialisation

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The relationship between mechanical power and speed
Synchronous motors are categorized as constant speed drives. This means that line or load conditions
do not affect synchronous motor speed. It may have a short period of perturbations when initially
loaded but this is rectified instantly through damping actions of the motor.

Variation in mechanical power varies the load angle. Give an explanation for this and to what extent
does it change?

When the load is applied, there is an increase in load angle δ. Higher load demand means more
mechanical power is required. Maximum mechanical power is obtained when δ = 90°.

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
After observing the figures above, the graphs show motor speed and frequency and it is evident that as
the supply frequency increases, the synchronous speed of the motor also increases. This verifies the
equation for synchronous speed and it shown below:

This means that the synchronous speed is directly proportional to supply frequency.

The motor at hand has 4 poles, therefore:

At starting, the motor has a reduced stator current in order to protect motor windings from 0 – 0.1 sec
which is constant and suddenly starts to oscillate after 0.1 sec and reach a steady value of around 54 A
peak value at 1 sec. The oscillation in the current, speed and power waveforms are purely under
dumped responses as illustrated in the graphs above and this is desirable considering control of motor
drive system to reduce steady state error and for ease of analysis in gain propagation for stability.

It is observed that the speed starts off constant with an initial value of 1800 rpm and then drops to
approximately 1798.5 rpm due to the loading of the motor. The loading causes some oscillations before
it settles down (steady state) at 1800 rpm close to 2 sec. at this point, motor is running at synchronous
speed.

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The load angle starts off in similar fashion as current and speed: constant until the motor is loaded. From
here on, load angle increases steadily until a point where it settles down to a value approximately -27
degrees from 3 sec onwards. Load angle is proportional to the change in loading of the motor. Speed
stabilises faster than the load angle due to variation in the load.

The electrical power output as seen from the graph above has an initial value of --50 kW with a
corresponding mechanical power of -48.9kW this starts to increase to a maximum peak of -68 kW at 0.3
sec (i.e. more power is drawn by the load) and while oscillating, it settles at -62 kW from 1.3 sec to 3 sec.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the primary aim of this laboratory experiment is to illustrate the operation of a
synchronous motor and its characteristics. It was observed that a synchronous motor runs at a constant
speed known as synchronous speed. It is expected that the motor speed oscillates for a short period of
time when there is a sudden variation in the load. In majority of applications, these variations are
specified with a range of load angle variation for purposes of establishing a stable operation when there
is a variation in the load in order to prevent the motor from running out of synchronism.

It is expected that the motor speed remains the same for all operating points and this supports the
fundamental theory that is behind synchronous motor operation and this factor was observed from
experimental results. Theoretically, it is expected that the load angle will vary with the load and speed.
An increase in the load on the motor results in an increase in the load angle. In the laboratory
experiment, it was observed that the load angle increased as the mechanical power increased due to
load variation.

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REFERENCES
1. Sheikh, A. (2018). Three-Phase Synchronous Motor | Construction | Working | Starting Methods
| Applications. Retrieved 10 June 2021, from https://electricalacademia.com/synchronous-
machines/three-phase-synchronous-motor/
2. Electrical4U. (2020). Synchronous Motor Drives. Retrieved 10 June 2021, from
https://www.electrical4u.com/synchronous-motor-drives/

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