Analyzing the starting current of induction motor in ATP

Journal Paper Review

EE5220-Transients in Power Systems
Spring 2016
Instructor:-Dr. Bruce Mork

Team:-
Abhishek Ravindran
Siddharth Wadhawan
Journal Paper Review
For the project title mentioned above we have referred to the following paper. We hope to thoroughly
study and understand the methodology and calculations involved in analyzing the starting current of an
induction motor in ATP.
1. Rusnok, S., Sobota, P., Mach, V., Kacor, P., & Misak, S. (2015, May). Possibilities of program
EMTP-ATP to analyze the starting current of induction motor in frequent switching. In Electric
Power Engineering (EPE), 2015 16th International Scientific Conference on (pp. 614-619).
IEEE.
2. Pedra, J., Candela, I., & Sainz, L. (2009). Modelling of squirrel-cage induction motors for
electromagnetic transient programs. Electric Power Applications, IET, 3(2), 111-122.
From the point of view of the project, the above papers would give us a detailed understanding on how to
create an ATP model to analyze the starting currents in induction motors. This would require a very in
depth analysis and understanding of the three phase induction motor model used in ATP. We would require
to know the relationships between mechanical and electric components. The initialization and how the
mechanical components can be represented in ATP. The above papers would also provide us with a starting
point on how to determine the equivalent circuit parameters of an induction motor.
Induction Motors are one of the most widely used electrical equipment. They are an integral part of any
power system network. Therefore from system analysis point of view it is essential to carry out a transient
analysis of the induction motor properly. For transient analysis study, the direct-quadrature axis model is
more preferable since, the flux along the two axis are separate and do not interact with each other. Also the
voltage and flux linked along the direct and quadrature axis are independent of time. By using the direct-
quadrature axis multiphase machines can also be reduced to an equivalent model with just two orthogonal
windings for both the stator and rotor.
The induction motor can be fundamentally divided into 3 sections:

Stator section
Rotor section
Mechanical section
The conversion of electrical into mechanical energy occurs in the stator and rotor coils. Electrical energy is
first transferred into magnetic energy in the machines core and air gap this is succeeding transferred back
into electrical energy in the rotor coils. In order to construct the model the basic parameters that need to be
considered for transient simulations are the leakage inductances, mechanical properties, electrical network
parameters.
1. Mechanical Properties
The mechanical properties consists of the shaft angle, spring coefficient, inertia of the rotating body and
damping. These properties are represented by using the lumped RLC equivalent in the electrical network.
The equivalent mechanical and electrical quantities can be summarized as,

MECHANICAL EQUIVALENT ELECTRICAL

COMPONENT
Torque (T)
Angular speed ()
Angular position ()
Moment of inertia (J)
Stiffness coefficient (K)
Damping Coefficient
COMPONENT
Current (into the node) (I)
Voltage (at the node) (V)
Capacitor charge (q)
Capacitance to ground (C)
Reciprocal of inductance (1/L)
Conductance (1/R)

2. Electrical Network Parameters

The electric network consists of the cables, transmission lines, transformers, source that are connected to
the induction motor model. It is essential to model these components properly since they influence the
transient behavior. Also the internal resistance and reactance for the induction motor itself is given as,
The impedance of the rotor when considered as a reference has the winding resistances ( ) in series with
the inductance ( ). Under steady state the rotor impedance is,

= +
The rotor flux is the time integral of impedance times the current,
+
= ( + )

The voltage of the stator in terms of rotor impedance is given as,

= ( + ) ( )

The impedance can be written as

= ( + )

We can see that the impedance on the stator side experiences the stator frequency, while the rotor side

impedance experiences rotor frequency. The stator resistor is scaled by a factor . Thus we can see that

the impedance of the rotor and stator are dependent on the relative speed of rotation of the stator and rotor.
Thus during transient analysis it is essential to take into account all of these factors.
The above concepts help us to gain a general insight into the components associated with transient analysis
of an induction motor. The papers reviewed give a more detailed analysis and help us to understand as to
how the inherent transient behavior of the induction motor is. Also, based on the results of the paper, we
identified a few mitigating techniques to curtail the starting transients.

Some of the key points of the papers are discussed below

1) A detailed derivation of the energy of magnetic field of induction motor is given. This This is given
by
1 1
= 11 12 + 22 22 + 1 2
2 2

2) The starting current was analyzed for repeated starting of the motor in no load and in full load state.
This was performed for different lengths of time varying from 20 to 500 milliseconds.
3) It was observed that repeated starting of induction motors can produce currents which are greater than
the starting currents during starting from zero.
4) Such current peaks are very dangerous as it can lead to the degradation of insulation system of the
machine.
5) The induction motor is usually modelled using the single cage model. However, this model is not
accurate when there is a wide variation in slip. The single cage model is represented in the figure
shown above.
6) Hence in order have more accuracy, a double cage model is used. A double cage induction motor has
two rotor windings. This helps to increase the starting torque and hence reduces the heating losses
which are the drawbacks of the single cage model. A double cage model is shown in the figure below.
7) Experimental results are compared to the results obtained when a single and a double cage model are
considered. It is observed that the experimental results are in good agreement with the double cage
model values of current and torque.
8) The equivalent circuit parameters are determined by using iterative methods which is a tedious
process.
9) The paper also talks about the implementation of the developed models in EMTP-RV and PSCAD.

Shortcomings:
1) The paper does not show how some of the parameters that were used in the model were obtained.
2) The author does the modelling by considering a single cage induction motor model, which is not an
accurate representation of a motor model.
3) The equivalent circuit is developed based on the assumption that the stator leakage saturation, rotor
leakage saturation and the magnetizing saturation are linear in nature even though practically they are
non-linear.
Solutions:
1) In order to consider the non-linearity of the induction motor, we can do piece wise linearization of the
of the flux linkages.

References:
[1] Rusnok, S., Sobota, P., Mach, V., Kacor, P., & Misak, S. (2015, May). Possibilities of program
EMTP-ATP to analyze the starting current of induction motor in frequent switching. In Electric
Power Engineering (EPE), 2015 16th International Scientific Conference on (pp. 614-619).
IEEE.
[2] Pedra, J., Candela, I., & Sainz, L. (2009). Modelling of squirrel-cage induction motors for
electromagnetic transient programs. Electric Power Applications, IET, 3(2), 111-122.
[3] Dommel, H. W. (1996). EMTP theory book. Microtran Power System Analysis Corporation.
[4] Veltman, A., & van den Bosch, P. P. J. (1991, September). A universal method for modelling
electrical machines. In Electrical Machines and Drives, 1991. Fifth International Conference on
(Conf. Publ. No. 341) (pp. 193-197). IET.