THE CALCULATION OF RADIAL FORCES EXERTED ON THE

STATOR SLOT CONDUCTORS OF SYNCHRONOUS GENERATORS

IN STEADY AND TRANSIENT OPERATING STATES
M. Klocke
University of Dortmund, Institute of Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Electronics,
Emil-Figge-Str. 70, D 44221 Dortmund, Germany
Email: klocke@mal.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de
Abstract Electromagnetic forces exerted on stator winding conductors in steady operating state and under
faulty condition are calculated using different methods. It can be shown that time intervals with negative
values of the radial force on the upper conductor, i.e. forces pressing the conductor against the slot wedge,
occur due to the phase shift between upper and lower layer current in slots with conductors of different
phases. This becomes particularly crucial in case of faulty operation, e.g. for a three phase terminal short
circuit, when the maximum phase currents exceed their rated values by a factor of about ten. Therefor slot
termination wedges cannot be omitted.

Introduction
The mechanical function of slot termination wedges in stators of synchronous generators is sometimes
not understood clearly. Since the conducting bars in the slots are exposed to their own transversal
magnetic field only, one might conclude that electromagnetic forces only pull these conductors into
the slot, hence additional slot wedges being obsolet.
However, this is not true in general, but exclusively for slots containing conductors belonging to the
same phase. Most windings actually in use are pitched and a number of slots with conductors of
different phases occur. In steady state operation the phase shift of 60 between the currents in these
conductors has to be taken into account. It appears that the resulting force on the upper bar oscillating
with double grid frequency changes its direction for a few milliseconds, thus exerting pressure onto
the slot termination wedge.
Furthermore, in case of faulty operation, for instance a three phase terminal short circuit, the machine
becomes electrically asymmetric. The currents in the three phases contain a dc-component exponentially decreasing in dependence of time. The peak value of the current resulting from subtransient,
transient and asymmetric components may moreover be up to ten times higher than the steady state
value. Both circumstances result in a significant pressure onto the slot wedges.
The article in hand at first presents an analytical derivation of the electromagnetic forces exerted on
the conductors in a rectangular slot surrounded by ideally ferromagnetic material. For a synchronous
generator actually existing the currents in the three phases as functions of time are calculated for a
three phase terminal short circuit using the NETOMAC program, which is a simulation tool based on the
equivalent circuit according to Parks theory. Putting these currents into the analytical force formulae
one obtains the desired forces as functions of time.
Furthermore two-dimensional finite difference time stepping calculations of these forces are carried
out, which allow immediately taking into account iron saturation of the stator and the rotor core and
eddy current phenomena in the rotor with respect to the question, whether or not these effects
influence the magnitude of the conductor forces.

Dr.-Ing. M. Klocke works as a scientific assistant at the Institute of Electrical Machines, Drives and Power
Electronics held by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. S. Kulig.

Analytical Calculation of Bar Forces

Fig. 1 shows the cross-section of a slot containing conductors of the upper and the lower layer of the
stator winding and a diagram of an exemplary distribution of the transversal magnetic field in the slot.
This distribution of the magnetic field strength can be derived with currents iup and ilow from Amperes
law, if the ferromagnetic material surrounding the slot is assumed to be infinitely permeable and a
straightly transversal field line is prescribed as the upper boundary. The influence of the insulation
layer dI on the form of the magnetic field is neglected and so a merely transversal field in the slot can
be assumed.
0 ,

0 x < dI

x d I ilow
, d I x < hlow + d I

hlow bS
ilow
, hlow + d I x < hlow + d I + d sep
H y = bS
x (hlow + d I + d sep )
1
ilow +
iup ,
bS
hup

(1)

hlow + d I + d sep x < hup + hlow + d I + d sep

ilow + iup
bS

, hup + hlow + d I + d sep x < hS

Fig. 1 Typical simplified cross-section of a rectangular stator slot of a synchronous generator and distribution of transversal magnetic field strength, here in case of iup = -0.5 ilow.

The force can be obtained by integrating the cross product of the vectors of current density and
magnetic flux density over the bar copper volume. Since the current density is constant on the copper
cross-sections and the field is two-dimensional, the resulting force vector can be expressed by the
mean value of the magnetic flux density on the conductive cross-section BCS, m .
F=

J B dV = J
V

B dV = l z
V

i
1
ez B dA = lz iez
ACS
A
CS
CS

B dA = lz iez BCS,m .

(2)

CS

According to the assumptions concerning the magnetic field the magnetic force exerted on the stator
bars has only got a component in radial direction. The required mean values of the magnetic field are
easily read from (1) and Fig. 1. This slightly simplifies the calculation compared to [1], where the
integration is carried out after replacing the field in (2) by the expression from (1). Moreover (2)
shows that the force calculation can be performed by two succeeding independent operations, i.e. the
field averaging procedure and the multiplication of the resulting time function with the current time
function, which is of interest for programming in the finite difference time stepping code.
So one obtains the following expressions for the bar forces exerted on the lower and the upper
conductor:

l 2
ilow
2
( e x ) = 0 l z ilow
e y = 0 z ilow
er .
2bS
2bS
2bS
l
1
1
1
Fup = l z iup ez 0 H y, CS,m,up e y = 0 l z i up ez
ilow + iup ey = 0 z iup ilow + i up er .
bS
bS
2
2
Flow = l z ilow ez 0 H y, CS,m,low e y = 0 l z ilow ez

(3a)
(3b)

The same result can be obtained by evaluating Maxwells stress tensor for a surface around the
conductor under consideration, e.g. positioned inside the insulation layer. For the upper conductor for
instance this yields

dA =

Fup =
S

H x2 H y2
1
0
2H x H y
2

2H x H y
H y2 H x2

1
en dA = 0 bS l z
2

ilow + i up
bS

i
low
bS

er ,

(4)

which is the same as in (3b). By contrast to the example described in [2], where a cylindrical
ferromagnetic conductor is exposed to an originally homogenous field, the integrated volumetric force
exactly equals the result obtained from Maxwells stress tensor as no surface force densities arising
from differing inside and outside permeabilities occur.
From (3a) it is seen that the lower conductor is never exposed to negative radial forces at any instant
of time. For the upper conductor of three phase windings this is only true for slots with upper and
lower conductor belonging to the same phase. If there are instants of time with iup > 0 and ilow < -0.5 iup
or iup < 0 and ilow > -0.5 iup , which is the case for slots with conductors belonging to different phases in
pitched windings, the radial force becomes negative, thus pressing the upper bar against the slot
wedge. It can be shown that at rated operation with e.g. iup (t ) = I cos ( t ) and ilow (t ) = I cos t +
3
the force on the upper bar in such slots becomes
Fup =

0lz 2
7
3
I 1+
cos 2 t + arctan
2bS

er

0 lz 2
I (1 + 1.323 cos (2 t + 0.227 )) er ,

(5)

2bS

like in [3], where the expressions for the bar forces are derived by the principle of virtual displacement. The reversed sign of the phase shift of about 41 in [3] results from an orientation of the phase
shift between upper and lower bar current being different from the one used here.
So a maximum negative force of about a third of the maximum force exerted on the lower conductor
in positive radial direction is reached.
In case of a three phase terminal short circuit the most asymmetric courses of the currents can initially
be described by
1

iR (t ) = I (1 cos ( t )) , iS (t ) = I + cos t +
2
3

and iT (t ) = I 1 + cos t
2
3

(6)

This holds as long as the subtransient process is dominant. The exponential decrease of the
asymmetric component is neglected for the estimation of a maximum boundary for the initial forces. A
detailed examination shows that maximum negative forces on the upper bar occur in slots with
currents iS and iT. With iup = iS and ilow = -iT the force exerted on the upper bar as a function of time
becomes:
Fup,-T,S =

0lz 2 3

3
7
I

+ cos t
cos 2 t arctan
2bS

er .

(7)

This equation contains a single power grid frequency and a double power grid frequency component
as well as a constant offset. Under real conditions this offset and the amplitudes of the frequency component would be exponentially time dependent like the currents but with different time constants, but
for a simple estimation of an upper boundary for the negative peak force (7) is sufficient. The maximum negative value of the function in parentheses is about -1.260. The peak value of the current 2 I
for the three phase terminal short circuit in (6) is usually about ten times the rated current amplitude.
So comparing (5) and (7) one observes that in the later case the maximum force exerted on the slot
wedge by the upper conductor is 1.26052 / 0.323 100 times the value during steady state operation.

Determination of bar forces based on numerical calculation of stator currents

A 775 MVA synchronous generator is investigated for the exemplary case of a three phase terminal
short circuit occurring during operation at rated load. The courses of the currents are calculated using
the program NETOMAC [4], which is a power grid and electrical machine simulation tool based on the
method of difference conductances. The synchronous machine is modelled as an equivalent electric
network according to Parks theory. The parameters of the machine under consideration are listed in
[5], appendix B. For the simulation of the short circuit here, full saturation of the machine is assumed
resulting in a reduction of every reactance by a factor of 0.92=0.81.
The winding scheme of the machine for one pole is shown in Fig. 2. The coil groups of one phase are
connected in parallel. So the bar currents are half the phase currents, which has to be taken into
account for determining the bar forces.
slot No.
lower
layer
upper
layer

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-R

-S

-S

-S

-S

Fig. 2 Stator winding scheme of the investigated 775 MVA synchronous generator. Number of poles 2p = 2,
q = 7 coils per coil group, coil pitch = 4, rated voltage U = 26 kV, stator lenght lz = 7.196 m, stator slot width
bS = 50.2 mm. Exemplary marked slots 6, 13 and 19 with different phase currents in upper and lower layer.

The calculated courses of the phase currents as shown in Fig. 3 nearly describe the most asymmetric
case of a three phase short circuit. The maximum value of the current in phase R is about 10.7 times
the current amplitude at rated load. According to the considerations above a maximum negative radial
force on an upper conductor has to be expected for slots with bars of phase S and T, e.g. for slot
No. 19 in Fig. 1. The evaluation of (3b) yields the graph shown in Fig. 4. The negative peak value of
the force becomes 469 kN, whereas the maximum negative force during operation at rated load is only
ca. 4.28 kN, i.e. about 110 times less.
The time functions of the forces on the upper conductors in slot No. 13 and 6 are comparable to the
one obtained for slot No. 19 concerning the frequency components with 60 Hz and 120 Hz as well as
the exponentially decreasing offset. However, compared to Fig. 4 the maximum negative values are
less, whereas the maximum postive values are greater.
The negative peak force in slot No. 13 becomes about 222 kN, in slot No. 6 it is only 77 kN.
300
kA
200

1200
kN
800

100

400

0
-1 0 0

-2 0 0
-3 0 0

-4 0 0
0

0 .2

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

Fig. 3 Phase currents for a three phase terminal short

circuit of the investigated generator from NETOMAC
simulation.

0 .2

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

Fig. 4 Radial force on upper bar of slot 19 calculated

from bar currents iup = -iS/2 and ilow = iT/2 with phase
currents iS and iT from NETOMAC simulation in Fig. 3.

Calculation of bar forces by the finite difference time stepping method

As a comparison to the relatively easy evaluation of (3b) based on the NETOMAC current results a 2D
finite difference time stepping method implemented in the program FELMEC developed and used at the
Institute of Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Electronics is applied. The mathematical base of
the method is described in [5-7]. For each time step the distribution of the magnetic vector potential on
the discretized cross-section of the machine is determined by solving a system of equations for the
unknown node values of the vector potential. Moreover the voltage equations of stator and rotor
windings are taken into account as well as eddy current induction in conductive regions assumed to be
ideally short-circuited in the end zones of the machine. So, the unknown stator and rotor currents are
calculated simultaneously. Furthermore, iron saturation is iteratively treated at each time step, i.e. the
time dependence of the magnetization state of the ferromagnetic material is taken into account.
The bar forces are determined by a direct evaluation of (2). Therefor the more accurate field
calculation especially concerning the field in the upper conductor close to the air gap should result in
more reliant values for the bar forces. However, as a disadvantage the geometrical approximation of
the cross-section within a polar grid, which in particular affects the average slot width, should be
mentioned as well as the enormous computational effort.
The results for the phase currents and the forces shown in Fig. 5 and 6 seem to be comparable to those
obtained by the NETOMAC calculation, in particular good agreement of negative peak values of radial
forces is achieved. For slot No. 19 this negative peak value is 469 kN and only negligibly deviates
from the former result. For slot No. 13 and 6 these values are 228 kN and 70 kN, i.e. they deviate from
the former results by 2.7 % and 10 %.
However, the positive peak values of the radial forces differ much more from the former values. For
slot No. 13 e.g. the value is 1943 kN, which deviates by 25.2 % from the value obtained by the
NETOMAC calculation. For slot No. 19 with Fmax,+ = 1069 kN this difference becomes 14.1 %, and for
slot No. 6 with Fmax,+ = 2575 kN it is 23.8 %.
These differences are not only caused by differing simulation conditions of the both calculation
methods, e.g. slightly different load and phase angles at the begin of the short circuit. The treatment of
iron saturation and the approximation of the rectangular slot cross-section are also essential reasons for
the deviations mentioned above.
A backward calculation of the effective magnetic slot width bS,eff from the FELMEC current and force
results by (3b) shows a significant increase up to bS,eff = 74 ... 77 mm at instants of time with
maximum positive forces in slot No. 6 and 13. This appears to be conditioned by saturation, since
maximum forces are related to maximum currents and flux densities and in slots No. 13 and 6 the
asymmetrical components of the currents have the same orientation.
1200
kN
800

300
kA
200
100

400

0
-1 0 0

-2 0 0
-3 0 0

-4 0 0

1 2 .8

13

1 3 .2

1 3 .4

1 3 .6

Fig. 5 Phase currents for a three phase terminal short

circuit of the investigated generator from FELMEC 2Dfinite difference time stepping simulation. Time step
h = 0.111 ms.

1 2 .8

13

1 3 .2

1 3 .4

1 3 .6

Fig. 6 Radial force on upper bar of slot 19 calculated

from average cross-sectional flux densities and bar
currents of FELMEC simulation.

By contrast, in slot No. 19 the orientation of the asymmetric components is opposite, which is a cause
for maximum negative forces, but iron saturation of teeth in the neighbourhood is reduced by
compensatory effects of the field components. The effective slot width only increases to ca.
59 ... 60 mm. In steady state operation bS,eff turns out to be about 56 mm, which is in good agreement
with the average slot width given by the discretisation.

Conclusion
The radial forces exerted on conductors of two layer windings in electrical machines have been
investigated. For a 775 MVA synchronous generator the force on the upper conductors in slots with
different phase currents in upper and lower bar have been calculated. Two methods have been applied:
Firstly a simple evaluation of the analytical force formulae based on currents resulting from an
equivalent network simulation by use of the NETOMAC program and secondly the finite difference
time stepping scheme FELMEC.
The negative peak values of the forces after a three phase terminal short circuit turn out to be in good
agreement, so that the easier NETOMAC calculation appears to be sufficient. The effects of saturation
as a comparison between the two methods have been proofed by calculating an effective magnetic slot
width from the FELMEC results for phase currents and bar forces. The maximum negative peak force,
which is of interest for slot wedge dimensioning, occurs in slots with bar dc-current components
oriented in opposite directions. It turns out to be rather hardly affected by iron saturation.
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