Winding diagram for an AC motor
This is what is known as a double-layer
Here we see a winding diagram for a 3-phase AC induction motor or
brushless PM motor (IPM), having 4 poles and 36 slots. This winding
could in fact be used with any AC machine, including a synchronous
reluctance motor or a wound-field synchronous motor or generator. In
most respects it is a regular classical example, and the objective here is to
review some of the features of the diagram and its conventions, rather
than the winding itself or any particular machine.
The starting-point is the developed winding diagram at bottom left. The
term “developed” is borrowed from the geometry of cylinders, and it
means that our view of the inside of the stator bore is rolled out on to a
plane. We have to imagine that we are inside the stator, somewhere
near the centre-line or axis, and looking radially outwards towards the
slotted inside surface. If we rotate our view through 360°, we will see
all 36 slots.
The developed diagram shows only a few slots, but we can see that
altogether there are 36 coils. Each coil has two coil-sides, so there must
be two coil-sides in each slot.
winding, one of the most common types. The coils are all identical, and
they are laid up so that one coil-side is in the bottom of a slot, and the
other at the top near the slot-opening. The bottom coil-sides are shown
with dashed lines, because they are hidden behind the top coil-sides
when we look outwards from the axis. Each coil is represented in the
developed diagram by a polygon with triangular “end-windings”,
sometimes called a “diamond coil”.
In machines with many slots the developed diagram can become very
intricate, especially when the winding is designed for a variety of
series/parallel connections. For this reason an extremely compact form
of connection diagram is often used, particularly in winding-shops. In
the following, we assume that all the coils are identical, and laid up all in
the same direction in a regular fashion; their polarities are then
determined by the interconnectors, and what is vitally important in the
winding-shop is to connect them up in groups with the correct polarities,
in the correct series or parallel paths, and in the correct phases.
The compact diagram shows the pole-groups. In this example with 36
coils, 3 phases, and 4 poles, the coils naturally fall into groups of 3, that
is, 36/(3 × 4). One of these groups is highlighted in the developed
diagram. Its start point (S) is the leading tail of the first coil in the
group, and its finish point (F) is the trailing tail of the last (third).
S and F are waiting to be connected to the other pole-groups, according
to the main diagram. If parallel connection is intended, the EMFs
generated in all the parallel pole-groups must be identical in magnitude
and phase.
The compact diagram represents each pole-group by a simple arc. So as
not to touch or overlap adjacent arcs, the angular extent of this arc (in
slot-pitches) is a little shorter than the number of slots per pole per
phase, in this case 3 slot-pitches. The number of arcs is equal to the
number of pole-groups, and so the number of coils per group equals the
number of coils divided by the number of arcs: in this case, 36/12 = 3.
A remarkable property of this diagram is that it is independent of the
number of slots and coils. For example, if we substitute a 48-slot stator
the diagram does not change, but the number of coils per group
increases from 3 to 4. In a 24-slot stator there would be 2 coils per
group. All these cases are examples of windings with 60° “spread”,
which is extremely common. (Technically we should include the case of
12 slots, but this is degenerate in having a spread of zero). Also note
that the diagram gives no information about the coil-span or pitch; thus
for example in the 36-slot case a full-pitch winding would have a coil-
span of 9, but 8, 7 or 6 could also be used (all with 2 coil-sides per slot).
The arc diagram contains all the necessary information for connecting the
pole-groups correctly. With all the arcs in place, it is a fairly
straightforward matter of “circuit logic” to connect them up with the
correct polarities into the respective phases. To help interpret the
connections, a circuit diagram for one phase is added on the right-hand
side, and we can see that in this example all the coils in one phase are in
series. That is to say, the number of parallel paths is 1. It would be a
useful exercise to draw the main diagram again (and the right-hand
diagram), with 2 parallel paths and again with 4 parallel paths (the
maximum possible number in this example).
The detail is important. The pole-groups are numbered 1 to 12 going
anti-clockwise, and every pole-group is labelled S–F going anti-
clockwise. Arrows have been added on the arcs, to show the
connection polarities, and in the centre of the diagram we have added a
written “schedule” of connections: thus, for example, “F1 to F4” means
that the finish of pole-group 1 is connected to the finish of pole-group 4.
The pole-groups are associated with three phases in this example, and
according to the layout the start of phase 2 must be displaced 120°
(electrical) from the start of phase 1, in the direction of forward
rotation. Since this is a 4-pole machine, that is 60° (mechanical), so if
phase 1 starts at slot 1, phase 2 must start at slot 7, and phase 3 at slot
13.
While the arc diagram can deal with windings of great complexity, it does
not show the positions of individual coil-sides: these are implicit when
the coil-span and the number of coils per group are known, but they are
not of primary importance in the process of connecting pole-groups.
This might be a disadvantage to an engineer calculating the winding
factors or analyzing the machine using a finite-element program. Also,
the arcs look rather similar to the end-windings sometimes displayed in
winding-design software, and this could be seen as a distraction because
they have no relation to the end-windings.
For analytical purposes the developed winding diagram is perhaps more
useful because it shows the physical position of every coil. When the coils
are neatly grouped, as in this example of a distributed winding, the
design equations (particularly the winding factors) can be calculated by
formulas from the spread and the coil-span; but in other cases, such as
concentric windings or windings with fractional slots/pole, matters
become more complicated and it may be necessary to assemble the
winding factors by Fourier-series analysis on a coil-by-coil basis. Again,
there are special cases where completely irregular windings may be used,
including coils of different spans, and in such cases the arc diagram is not
appropriate.
It is probable that there is no single style of winding diagram that can
efficiently represent all the engineering attributes of the wide range of
windings used in electric machines. The three elements in the diagram
here — the developed diagram, the circular pole-group connection
diagram with arcs, and the electrical circuit diagram — are all
commonplace but it is not very often that we see them all together, and
there are still other representations not discussed here at all.
Nowadays the complications tend to arise with both large and small
machines having fractional slots/pole, where there is great attention to
the EMF waveform, the cogging torque, and the level of harmonic
leakage reactance. In preparing a winding diagram with these
calculations in mind, the requirements are not quite the same as when
preparing an engineering drawing for use in a winding-shop, yet there
must be a high degree of consistency throughout all these processes, and
ideally a suite of design software should handle all these aspects equally
thoroughly.

It is probably fair to say that the main connection diagram (even without
the written schedule in the middle) is sufficient for the winding-shop to
install and connect many types of AC winding correctly without using the
developed diagram or the electrical circuit diagram. If you are ever
lucky enough to be shown round a winding-shop, they may even show
you some hand-drawn examples which they use to re-wind machines
that are completely burned out. Just hope that you are not the
designer of that burned-out machine!

Synthesis of AC motor windings

How should we synthesize a suitable winding layout for an AC brushless
PM motor?

While the properties of existing windings can easily be analyzed using a

spreadsheet program, it is not so obvious to create a new winding layout
from scratch. So here is an example of a systematic approach that will
work in many cases.
The example has 24 slots and 28 poles. Thus the slots/pole = 0.857, and
since this is close to 1 we are clearly going to use single-turn coils. The
table shows 24 coils. In practice they are all wound in the same
direction with a span of +1, their polarities being fixed by the
interconnections; but here we will show the polarities by means of the
signs or directions of the ampere-conductors rather than the directions
followed in the winding process. The arrowheads on the end-windings
also show these directions. With this method we lose the important
practical detail of the interconnectors, but we obtain a compact diagram.

We need to describe the properties of each coil. Taking coil 1 as an
example, it has a “go” slot (1) and with a span of +1 it has a “return” slot
(2). We can see this in the diagram, in which the numbers are the slot-
numbers. Its axis is at 15° from the horizontal, and in electrical degrees
this is 15 × 28/2 = 210°. Taking coil 1 as the reference, we find the
relative axis angle of every other coil, in electrical degrees. For each coil
this angle is denoted θ.
In the next three columns we calculate cos(θ), cos(θ–120°), and
cos(θ+120°). In effect, these cosine functions project the MMF
(magnetomotive force) axis of each coil along three axes associated with
the three phases. Thus for example coil 1 is clearly aligned with phase 1
(red) while coil 3 is reverse-aligned with phase 3 (blue).
If we follow this logic for all the coils which are perfectly aligned with one
of the phase axes, we will end up with the single-layer winding on the
right-hand side of the winding diagram (1 coil-side per slot). Note that
in each phase, the polarities of successive coils are reversed; for example
coil 1 goes from slot 1 to slot 2 and belongs to the red phase, but coil 7
goes in the reverse direction from slot 8 to slot 7. As we have said, in
practice the coils would not be wound in opposite directions,
but connected in opposite directions.
In the table we can see that we have accounted for all the odd-numbered
coils, but what about the even-numbered coils? They can be paired with
the adjacent odd-numbered coils but only by connecting them in series,
because of the 0.866 cosine factor. (There is still the possibility of up to
4 parallel paths in each phase). When this is done, we get the double-
layer winding in the left-hand diagram (2 coil-sides per slot), although
only one phase is shown.
The reader is encouraged to create a spreadsheet to do this job. It will
quickly be found that the technique is a powerful one for synthesizing
windings — not only single-tooth windings but other, more general
windings. Note that the coil polarities fall out naturally according to the
signs of the cosine functions, while the coils are clustered into pole-
groups by associating sets of coils with the largest cosine factors
together. For example, in the red phase in the double-layer diagram, a
pole-group is naturally formed by coils 1 and 2 in the table. Having
one’s own spreadsheet is a good way to explore the properties of
windings.
In general, the process involves assigning each coil to one of the three
phases according to the relative magnitudes of the three cosine
functions, taking the sign into account to determine the connection
polarity. This assignment is not unique, but allows room for judgement
and some flexibility. If you’re adventurous, write yourself a procedure
to draw the windings in a CAD program and to plot the MMF vectors in
the complex plane! A really ambitious project would be to devise a logical
way of selecting the best winding from all the feasible ones. This is not
a trivial challenge: the “best” winding might be defined in terms of its
harmonic properties (EMF waveform and differential leakage
inductance), or in terms of the bulk and complexity of the
interconnectors.
The coil table can also be used as the basis of a primitive inductance Reading a winding diagram
matrix which can be transformed by means of connection matrices to
generate the self and mutual inductances of the fully connected three-
phase winding, as taught by Gabriel Kron. Connection matrices are the
mathematical expression of the process of wiring up the coils in the
required circuits and phases with the correct polarities. They are
essential for mapping the winding layout to the resulting electrical circuit
diagram of the machine.

A natural extension of the table is to add the winding factors including

the harmonic winding factors, from which more advanced properties can
be obtained: for example, the Görges diagram and from it the associated
differential leakage coefficient.

The rightmost column in the table shows the modulus of each coil axis
angle θ and 120°. The zeroes pick out the “starts” of each pole-group,
according to the respective phases. With a little thought, you should be
able to work out the direction of rotation for a given phase sequence,
such as red-green-blue. (It’s anti-clockwise).

The “heuristic” method described here does not guarantee that a

suitable winding is feasible, with the given numbers of slots, poles, and
phases. The theory of the feasibility of windings is a complex subject
going back 100 years or more, with famous papers by S.P. Smith, W.
Kauders, and many others; and books such as Heller and Hamata.
Finally, a test! What are the winding factors for the working harmonic
(the 14th) in the two windings in the diagram? (Answer: 0.9330 in the
left-hand diagram, 0.9659 in the right-hand diagram. Don’t forget the
pitch factor!)
Winding diagrams come in many different formats. There is no
universal standard, but several common conventions can be found in
the winding diagrams used by different manufacturing companies.
Many winding diagrams are incomplete, in one respect or another.
For example, the example in the figure does not show any
interconnectors or terminals. Consequently the polarities of the
coils are not defined, although we might be able to infer them by
studying the layout carefully.
To work with windings, we need terms for all the components. We
have to be careful because some of the common terms mean different
things to different engineers.

The example is taken from one of the Powersys/JMAG training

courses, and it is presented as a question-and-answer session. The
questions are summarized on the left, and the answers (very faintly)
on the right. Let’s work through the questions, as a way of
understanding the diagram and the terminology at the same time.
1. The winding type. The most common windings in larger AC
machines are lap windings. In a lap winding, all the coils are the
same. Each coil occupies two slots (a “go” slot and a “return” slot)
whose numbers are 1 more (or 1 less) than the slot-numbers of the
previous coil. For example, coil 1 is in slots 1 and 6, and coil 2 in slots
2 and 7. The “1 more” succession characterizes a progressive lap
winding, and the “1 less” succession a retrogressive lap winding.
The distinction is not particularly important in AC windings, so these
terms are not used as often as they are in commutator motors.
Other types of winding used in AC machine stators
include concentric windings (common in hermetic single-phase
induction motors and others where the windings are made by
automatic insertion tools). There are several terms relating to the
method of manufacture,
as form winding, mush winding, random winding, skein winding, c
hain winding, and so on. None of these appears in the diagram!
Another common term is concentrated. This used to refer to pole-
groups with “zero spread” — that is, all the “go” coil-sides and all the
“return” coil-sides concentrated in the same two slots. However, in
recent years the term has often been used for single-tooth
windings (which are concentrated in the original sense).
2. The number of poles. This is easily seen to be 8, by counting
the salient poles on the field winding on the rotor. But that’s
cheating — the rotor is not part of the winding diagram! It might be
easier to answer some of the other questions first, and then come
back to the number of poles.
3. The number of slots. Easy — 48! Count them. But even
here we need to be careful because not all winding diagrams show
the outline of the stator lamination, and some even do not show all
the coils. In fact we’ve seen in an earlier column that some winding
diagrams apply to windings with more than one possible number of
slots and coils. In general the number of slots must be divisible by
the number of phases (in this case, 3) to ensure that a symmetrical or
balanced winding is possible, and here it must be even to ensure that
all the “go” and “return” coil-sides are disposed evenly. Odd
numbers of slots are sometimes used in DC motors
with wave windings.
4 and 10. The number of coils. A coil has two coil-sides, laid in
different slots which can be termed the “go” slot and the “return”
slot, as we have seen. In the example every slot contains two coil-
sides, and therefore the number of coils is equal to the number of
slots, 48. The number of layers is usually equal to the number
of coil-sides per slot, but we have to be careful because some
special windings have different numbers of coil-sides in different slots.
such
5 and 6. The coil span is the number of slots between the “go” coil-
side and the “return” coil-side. In this case all the coils are identical
and they have a span of 5 slots; so for example coil 1 “goes” in slot 1
and “returns” in slot 1+5 = 6. (It would help if the draughtsman
numbered the slots, but he didn’t). The coil pitch is equivalent to
the span, except that this term is used more often in a theoretical
context and expressed in electrical degrees, or per-unit of a pole-
pitch. Since this machine has 8 poles and a pole-pitch of 48/8 = 6
slots, the coil pitch here is 5/6 = 0·833 p.u., or 5/6 × 180° = 150
electrical degrees. These values are essential for calculating the
winding factors and the harmonic behaviour of the winding. In some
factories another term, “coil-throw”, is used to define the span. A
coil with a span of 5 slots would be described as having “Throw = 6”,
meaning “wound or laid in slots 1 and 6”. We have to be careful not
to confuse the “6” with the “5”. Finally the sign of the coil-span may
be important. For example a winding defined in terms of a series of
“go” slot numbers with a positive span could be described as
“progressive”, while with a negative span it would be retrogressive.
This terminology would be more meaningful in the winding shop, but
in analyzing the electrical and harmonic properties we would tend to
use the coil pitch, which also can be positive or negative. In formulas
for the distribution and pitch factors the sign of the coil pitch is often
omitted, but in rigorous harmonic analysis it should be included,
because it affects the phase sequence and direction of rotation of
harmonic field components. Finally as we have seen elsewhere in
this column, the polarities of the individual coils are generally defined
by the interconnectors. In some winding diagrams we will see coil-
spans alternating between positive and negative; but if that is done, it
may be left to the poor reader to work out the interconnectors, and it
should be considered poor practice.
7. Coils per pole-group. First we have to observe that the coils
of one phase arise in groups, each group being aligned with one
pole. In the example there are 48 coils, 8 poles, and 3 phases, so
there are 48/3 = 16 coils per phase and the number of coils per pole-
group is 16/8 = 2. There are 16/2 = 8 pole-groups per phase. In
some cases, by the way, alternate pole-groups are omitted; this type
of winding is called consequent-pole. The identification of pole-
groups is easy in the example, which has a nice integer number of
slots/pole (6); but some windings have fractional slots/pole, and the
number of coils per pole-group may vary or form a sequence such as
5,6,5,6,. . . In small PM brushless machines with a small number of
slots, the number of coils per pole-group is often only 1.
8 and 9. Slots/pole and slots/pole/phase. The slots/pole is
clearly 48/8 = 6, an integer. It should be divisible by the number of
phases (3), so slots/pole/phase = 6/3 = 2. Such regular integer
values are characteristic of classical AC windings, and usually we find
the number of slots/pole/phase in the formula for the winding
distribution factor; a higher value (such as 4 or 5 or 6 or even
more) is generally an indication of good harmonic performance —
that is, sinusoidal flux-distribution with weak harmonic effects. The
number of slots/pole is often an indicator of the cogging torque,
and this is one of the reasons why brushless PM machines often use
fractional values; in addition, when single-tooth coils are used, the
slots/pole is often found to lie between 0·75 and 1·5.
11. Is it OK to connect in delta? This question should be
considered slightly differently for PM brushless (or other synchronous)
machines, and induction machines. In the synchronous machines
the field (magnets or field winding) may produce a third-harmonic
component in the airgap flux distribution, and in this case it is vital for
the third-harmonic winding factor to be zero. Generally this is
achieved by setting the coil pitch equal to 2/3 p.u. (120 electrical
degrees). In the example the coil pitch is 5/6; the third-harmonic
winding factor is not zero and so the winding does not filter the third-
harmonic completely. Consequently if it is connected in delta there
will be a non-zero EMF around the delta, since the third-harmonic
EMFs in the three phases are all in phase. The impedance to this
EMF is generally small, so a large circulating current may flow, which is
not observable at the terminals. Overheating or even fire may
result. So this winding must not be connected in delta with a PM
rotor. With an induction machine, however, the source of third-
harmonic flux is much reduced, and a delta connection may be
acceptable if thoroughly tested under all operating conditions, and
taking possible manufacturing errors into account (such as eccentricity
of the rotor, any residual saliency in the rotor, or imbalance between
phases).
12. The number of parallel paths. Provided that symmetry is
observed, the maximum number of parallel paths (in each phase) is
generally equal to the number of pole-groups per phase, in this case
8. However we could also use 2 or 4, by interconnecting pole-groups
in series/parallel combinations. If all the coils of one phase are in
series, the number of parallel paths is just 1. The diagram does not
specify the number of parallel paths — it doesn’t even show the
interconnectors! Note that we must be careful not to confuse the
number of parallel paths with the number of parallel wire strands
in each conductor; the two are entirely separate properties.
Changing the number of parallel paths is a common way to adapt the
machine for different voltage levels with minimal changes to the
winding.

Finally let’s reconsider the number of poles. Can we infer it from the
coil span, or the number of pole-groups? It’s a good exercise to see
if we can do that. With cage-type induction motors, we won’t get
any help from the rotor!

As an extended exercise, the reader may be interested to make a

winding diagram for this machine in your own style, perhaps adding
interconnectors and even calculating the harmonic winding factors.
(The fundamental winding factor is 0·9330). Or you might care to
comment on the example diagram, and suggest improvements!