A.C.

GENERATOR
WORKING PRINCIPLE:
An A.C. generator (alternator) is a synchronous
machine whose rotor must rotate at synchronous speed.
This is a speed corresponding to the frequency of the
A.C. supply.
Its main purpose is to convert mechanical energy to
electrical energy.

In its simplest form it consists of
a set of magnet poles,
a coil of wires called as armature winding and
a prime mover.
The magnetic field structure can be a permanent
magnet or an electro-magnet.
In case of electromagnets there is a D.C. excitation
system with suitable excitation arrangement.
Usually field structure forms the rotating member of
the machine and is rotated at synchronous speed by the
prime mover.

As the magnetic pole rotates, the flux through the
winding of armature coil is made to vary with time.
This apparent sinusoidal variation of the flux
through the winding, as the magnet rotates is obtained by
proper shaping of the field poles.
This change is flux linkage through the coil as the
magnet rotates, generates an alternating voltage within the
coil.
The magnitude of this induced voltage is
proportional to the number of turns of wires in the coil and
the rate of change of flux through the winding.
It lags the flux by 90.
The mathematical relationship that expresses this behavior
is called Faradays Law:
e = N (d/dt) Volts
e = NW Sin Wt
Where:
e = generated Voltage
N = Number of turns
w = Angular Velocity of rotor
d/dt = rate of change of flux linkage
= flux linkage = Nm, Cos wt
(-) sign indicates that induced voltage e is in a direction to
oppose d /dt


The induced voltage can be increased by :
Increasing the speed of rotation which in turn increases the
d /dt.
changing the strength of field (changing the field current)
to change .
increasing the number of turns.


Where f is the frequency in cycles/sec. or hertz.
f = (Ns x P) / 120
Where:
Ns = Synchronous speed
P = No. of poles
Three Phase Generator:
A three phase generator has three separate but
identical armature windings displaced from other by 120
electrical degrees in space.
The induced phase emfs have a phase difference of
120, which appears at the terminals of the machine.
The generated EMF can be given by:
e
a
= E
m
Sin wt
e
b
= E
m
Sin(wt -120).
e
c
= E
m
Sin(wt +120).
E
m
= 2f K
g
N
Ph

m
Volts/phase
E
rms
= 4.44 f K
g
N
Ph

m
Volts/phase
Where:
K
g
= Generator constant depends on
arrangement of armature winding.
N
Ph
= Number of series connected turns/phase
Constructional Aspects of AC Generator:
The basic construction of an AC generator involves
the stator components,
the rotor components and
the cooling system.
Stator Components:
The stator components consists of the stator core, core
frame, stator winding, stator winding support, stator terminal
bushings, stator winding cooling components and stator casing.
Core frame is a fabricated structure of steel.
The stator core is built in these frame supported at
the back by the core plate assembly.
The core is held in assembled and pressed
conditions by non-magnetic core end plates, with separate
non-magnetic fingers to support the teeth.

The stator core is built-up of CRGO silicon sheet steel
laminations of 0.35mm to 0.5mm thickness.
The core plates are cut to sector shaped segments and
assembled in the core frame and located on dove tail shaped keys on
the inside periphery of the frame.
Stator slots and axial ventilation holes are punched on the
laminations.
The stator core is assembled in packets, with radial gaps in
between created by steel spacers to provide path for radial cooling.

The insulated stator laminations reduce the eddy
current losses in the core due to radial flow of fluxes.
The leakage fluxes that flow axially along the core
results in eddy heating of core, burning and welding of core
lamination.
To prevent this, the outer surfaces of core end plates are
covered by conducting screens of copper or aluminum.
Leakage fluxes impinging on these screens, set up
circulating currents within them which prevent penetration of
flux into the core axially.
The core end plate assembly carries the end winding
support structure.


The armature winding is housed in the slots of the
armature core and held in position by insulating wedge.
In 3 phase alternator there are three sets of windings
one for each phase.
They are displaced in space by 120 to produce 3-phase
voltage at the terminals with 120 phase difference in time axis
from each other.
The armature winding can be connected either in Star
or Delta connection.
For star connection the starting ends of the 3-phases are
joined together and brought out to neutral terminal and the
other ends a, b & c are connected to the other phase terminals in
the terminal box of the machine.
For Delta connecting a & c, c & b and b& a are
connected together and terminal leads are brought out from
their junctions.
The relationship between phase and line values for
current and voltage in star and Delta connection is as given
below.
Connection Current Voltage
Y (Star) I
L
=
Iph
V
L
= 1.732 V
ph
D (Delta) I
L
= 1.732 I
ph
V
L
= V
ph
The Stator has a 3 phase double layer short chorded bar
type windings having two parallel paths.
The conductors are made of high conductivity hard
drawn copper.
The copper conductors are of rectangular cross section
and are made up of no of parallel strips, in order to minimize
eddy current losses within the paralleled conductors, the
conductor strips are transposed in the slot portion.
The conductors in each coil side are glass insulated.
Cooling water is passing through the solid and hollow
copper conductors.
To eliminate corona between slot wall and bar insulation
conducting varnish (Alkali resin base with graphite mixture) is
applied to the straight part of the winding bar.
Terminal bushings:
Water cooled terminal bushings are housed in the lower
part of the stator on s1ip rings side.
Porcelain insulators are provided to insulate the
terminal bars from the stator body.
Effective sealing is provided between terminal bushings
and the stator body to avoid leakage of hydrogen.
Terminal bushings are housed inside a chamber made of
non-magnetic steel plates, 3-phase terminals and six neutral
terminals are brought out to facilitate external connections.
Rotor
The rotor of an alternator which carries field windings
can be of two types.
a)Salient Pole Type
b)Smooth Cylindrical Type (Round Rotor Type)

Two-pole synchronous generators: (a) salient pole
(b) cylindrical rotor construction
Salient Pole Type
Low and medium speed alternators (as water wheel driven)
have large number of protruding (salient) poles.
Their cores are bolted to a cast - iron or steel wheel.
Such rotors usually have large diameter and short axial
length.
The poles and pole shoes are laminated to minimize heating
due to eddy currents.
The field winding is made out of rectangular Copper strips
wound on the poles.
Smooth Cylindrical Type (Round Rotor Type)
The turbo generator, which runs at a very high speed, the
rotor consists of smooth solid forged steel cylinder with slots milled
along the periphery (parallel to the shaft) to accommodate field coils.
They are designed for 2 or 4 poles and the regions of central
pole axis are left un-slotted. These poles are non salient. To
reduce peripheral velocity such rotor has small diameter and large
axial length. Such rotor gives:
(1) Quieter Operation (2) Less Windage losses.
Field Winding
Concentric type field winding is employed. The
winding is made from hard drawn silver bearing copper (0. 1% to 0.
6%).
Addition of silver with copper improves the creep properties
of copper thus avoid copper shortening.
Rotor winding is held in position against centrifugal forces
by duraluminium wedges in the slot portion and non-magnetic steel
retaining rings in the overhand portion.

Copper segmented type damper winding is provided in the
end zones of rotor in order to prevent overheating of retaining rings
during asymmetrical and asynchronous operations (example
unbalance loading, double phase to ground faults etc)

Retaining Rings
The end windings are held in position against centrifugal
forces by these rings.
The rings are non-magnetic to reduce stray loss due to
leakage fluxes.

Slip Rings
The slip rings consist of helically grooved alloy steel rings
shrunk on rotor shaft and insulated from it.
Both the rings are mounted on a single, common steel bush,
which has an insulated jacket pre-moulded on it.
The complete bush with slip rings is shrunk on the rotor
shaft.
The slip ring surface is grooved and drilled to improve its
surface cooling.

Field leads
The slip rings are connected to the field winding through
semi-flexible copper leads and current carrying bolts placed radially
in the shaft.
Two Semi-circular hard copper bars insulated from each
other and from rotor shaft are placed in the central bore of rotor;
joining two sets of current carrying bolts with special profiled
precision conical threads the radial holes with current carrying bolts
in the rotor shaft are effectively sealed to prevent the escape of
hydrogen.

Brush Gear
It is arranged with several brushes and brush holders.
Brush holders are fixed on brass rings.
The brushes are spring loaded to maintain required contact
pressure.
The design of brush gear permits replacement of the
brushes during normal running condition.
The current carrying brass rings are rigidly fixed to the
bearing pedestal and insulated from it. Provision is made on these
rings for connecting cables from exciter.
Bearings
Generator bearings are of pedestal type, bearing bush is of
cast steel lined with metal Oil under pressure is supplied as
lubricant.
Provision is also made to supply jacking oil at high pressure
to facilitate rotation by the barring gear.
To prevent shaft current slip ring side bearing and
connectin8 pipes are insulated from earth.
Damper Windings
In addition to armature and field winding, alternators have
damper windings.
These windings which reassemble to cage rotor of induction
motor, is provided at the outer periphery of rotor.
Slots are made in pole shoes for receiving copper bars of
damper winding.
The Cu-bars are short circuited at both the ends by heavy
Cu-rings.
These dampers are useful in preventing hunting
(momentary speed fluctuation) and to provide starting torque.

Whenever the speed of alternator is other than synchronous
speed, such as during starting or at the time of transients, EMF is
induced and hence current is induced in the short circuited damper
winding due to induction effect.
This produces torque to restore the synchronous speed.
The solid field poles of turbo generator act as efficient
dampers, Hence they do not have damper windings (except in
special case to assist in synchronizing).

Generator Cooling:
Energy conversion by an electrical M/c involves the loss of
some power in coils, cores and structural past, which is dissipated as
heat.
To avoid overheating and damage to the machine especially
to insulation, this heat must be abstracted and discarded outside the
machine.
This purpose is served by a cooling system and a cooling
agent.
Coolant is circulated in sufficient rate and quantity.
The size of the machine, its rating and insulating material
used are some of the main factors deciding the type of cooling to be
used.
Various insulators have different operating temperature
limits, which is very important data while designing the cooling
system.

In turbo generators of small capacity of <60 MW, air cooling
is employed.
In stator and rotor cores spacing is provided to circulate air
thro them and remove heat.
Fans are fixed at rotor end which help in circulating air in
M/C casing for cooling purpose.
For large sets of higher capacity, air cooling increases
friction and windage losses.

Hydrogen has replaced air in such large sets due to its better
thermal conductivity and low density but hydrogen can form
explosive mixture when its purity is between 4 to 75% in air, hence a
high degree of purity (99. 9%) is used.
To prevent leakage of H
2
to atmosphere a shaft sealing oil
system is required

In generator of higher capacity stator conductors are made
hollow to enable flow of DM water to remove heat.
The water conductivity is kept very low to prevent heating of
the coolant.
The hollow conductors are insulated from piping of water
cooling system by Teflon tubes.
This system of water cooled stator winding and Hydrogen in
the casing as stator and rotor core coolant, is used for generator of
rating >600MW.

Generator of large rating >600 MW water cooling for both
stator and rotor is provided.
Whenever generator cooling system fails, generator has to
be unloaded to a lower power rating.

Shaft Seals
Since hydrogen is used as coolant in large turbo-generators,
to prevent escape of hydrogen along rotor shaft, seals are provided at
both end shields.
Shaft seal consists of seal liner pressing against collar on the
shaft, Seal liner is enclosed in a seal body.

Sealing is achieved by means of seal oil flow at higher
pressure than H
2
between seal liner by means of thrust oil pressure
pumped into a chamber between seal body and the liner.
The seal body, oil pipe lines etc. on the exciter side are
insulated from earth to prevent the circulation of shaft currents.
Excitation System
The arrangement provided to supply direct current
required to energize the field winding of a synchronous machine
is known as Excitation System.
Classification
The excitation system can be classified as:
1. Rotating armature type Excitation using direct
current generator.
2. Rectifier type Excitation using silicon diodes and
thyristors.
Rotating Machine type Excitation System
a) Direct Type:
In this type of excitation the exciter (D.C. Generator) is
directly coupled to the shaft of the synchronous machine.
The D.C. output of the excitation is fed to the main field by
brush and slip ring assembly.
b) Indirect Type:
In this the exciters rotor is coupled to a separate
motor rather than to the shaft of main generator.
From reliability considerations the turbo generator
should have direct excitation system.
But large machine needs large rating of excitation.
It cannot use d.c. generator due to commutation problems at high
speed.


Rectifier Type Excitation Systems:
Self Excitation System
The energy required to excite the synchronous machine is
drawn from main generator output via, a transformers as a.c. Which
is rectified by rectifiers and supplied to the main generator field via,
slip ring and brush assembly.

Separate Excitation System
In this system the energy required to supply the field
winding comes from an a c 3 phase generator mounted on shaft of
the main generator
This a c is converted to d c with the help of rectifier bridge
and supplied to the main generator field thro slip ring and brushes.
The exciter itself may get its supply from a permanent
magnet pilot exciter.
Brushless Excitation System
The main Exciter is an a.c. generator with its armature coil
on rotor and field winding on stator.
The a.c. output of armature winding is rectified to d.c. by
shaft mounted rectifier bridges (rotating along with shaft) and
supplied to the main generator field.
Thus eliminating the slip ring and brush assembly.

VOLTAGE REGULATION:
If an alternator is operated at a constant speed with a fixed
field excitation current, the terminal voltage will change with an
increase in load current.
The actual amount of change will depend on the load p.f of
the circuit and the impedance of the armature winding.
This change in terminal voltage from full load to no-load at a
constant speed and at fixed field current is termed as voltage
regulation.
Percent voltage regulation of an alternator is defined as the
percentage change in terminal voltage as the load current is changed
from full load to zero value with speed and excitation remaining
constant
No-load Voltage - Full load Volt.
%V.R.= ---------------------------------------- x 100
Full Load Volt
As an alternator is a constant speed M/C in order to
maintain fixed terminal voltage the field excitation has to be
changed.
In small M/Cs it is achieved by inserting a rheostat in series
with field circuit.
But in case of large power rating M/C it becomes
uneconomical.
Hence various other methods are used Normally Auto-
Voltage Regulator or Manual voltage regulators are used for voltage
regulation in large M/Cs.

Parallel Operation of Generators
Conditions required for paralleling
1. The rms line voltages of the two generators must be equal.
2. The two generators must have the same phase sequence.
3. The phase angles of the two a phases must be equal
4. The frequency of the new generator, called the oncoming
generator, must be slightly higher than the frequency of the
running system
Characteristic Curves
Saturation Curve or Open Circuit Characteristics
In an alternator, for constant speed the generated voltage
depends on the field flux.
As field flux is directly proportional to the field current, a
curve drawn between generated voltage and field current (with
generator on no-load) gives the open circuit characteristics of
generator.
Initially as the field current increases, the flux increases but
when magnetized iron core becomes saturated any increase in field
current results in very less or no increase in flux, hence no further
increase in generated voltages, It is called as saturation point and the
curve is also called as saturation or magnetizing curve.
Short Circuit Characteristics
This is obtained by running the machine at its rated speed
with its terminals short-circuited and observing the current by
ammeter while excitation (F) Ampere - turns/phase is varied from
zero to an amount sufficient to circulate 125% to 150% of full load
current in the stator.
It is a straight line (Fig 1.20)
To determine an approximate value of synchronous
impedance Z
S
= X
S
at a given field current.
1. Get the internal generated voltage E
A
from 0CC
2. Get Short circuit current I
SC
at that field current from SCC
3. Find Xs = E
A
/I
SC
.

Power and Torque in Synchronous Generator
A Synchronous generator is a synchronous machine used as
a generator.
It converts mechanical power to 3 phase electric power.
The source of mechanical power may be a diesel engine, a
steam turbine or water turbine.
Not all the mechanical power going into a synchronous
generator becomes electrical power out of machine.
The difference between output power and input power
represents the losses of the machine.
The power flow diagram for the synchronized generator is
shown.
The input mechanical power is the shaft power in the
generator
Short Circuit Ratio:
It is the ratio of field current required for rated voltage at
open circuit to the field current required for rated armature current
at short circuit. It is reciprocal of per unit X
S
.

Synchronous Generator ratings
The purpose of the ratings is to protect the generator from
damage due to improper operation.
A machine has a number of ratings listed on a name plate
attached to it.
Typical ratings on a synchronous machine are voltage,
frequency, speed, apparent power (kilo-volt) amperes, power factor,
field current. These ratings are interrelated.
Frequency
The rated frequency of synchronous generator depends on
the power system to which it is connected.
Once frequency is known, there is one possible rotational
speed for a given number of poles given by the equation:
f = PN/120
where
P = No. of poles
N = Speed in rpm


Voltage
A Generators voltage depends on the flux, the speed of
rotation and mechanical construction of the machine.
For a given frame size, speed, higher the desired voltage, the
higher the machines required flux.
However, flux cannot be increased forever, since there is
always a maximum allowable field current.

Daily Checks
1. Cleanliness of generator surroundings.
2. No oil, dust on insulation of bearings, oil seals, slips
rings and brush gear.
3. Check H2 gas consumption. If abnormally high, check
for leakage.
4. Check the gas sample from dome type H
2
leak detector,
Mounted on the water header purge line to check H2
leak into water circuit.
1.Check brush-gear for
unusual sparking between brushes and slip rings
Chattering of brushes
Dust and Oil accumulation
Cut pig-tails
2.Generator rotor to ground leakage current (not more than 30
A).
Maintenance, checks during operation of TG
Check rotor leakage current. If it is more blow with
pressurized air and recheck until value comes down to the order of
less than 30 A.
Replace worn out brushes if required.
Check brushes are sliding freely in their holders.
Adjust brush pressure on the brushes so that it is uniform on
all the brushes and is about 1.2 to 1.3 Kg/cm
2
on each brush.
Checks to be done before overhauling
1. Amplitude of vibration in all 3 directions i.e. axial, vertical and
transverse.
At maximum load
At no load with rated stator volts across the generator terminals.
At rated speed of the machine without excitation.
2. General condition of the insulation of bearing and the shaft seal
at exciter side.
3. Impedance of rotor winding when
Machine running at 3000 rpm
Machine is Stationary
1. Resistance measurement of rotor and stator windings at cold stage.
2. Insulation resistance of
Stator winding between phases and phase to ground
Rotor winding