Induction Motor Design has a major effect on the behaviour and performance of an induction motor. Very often the details or class of design of a motor are not well understood or promoted.
1. Stator design
The stator is the outer body of the motor which houses the driven windings on an iron core. In a single speed three phase motor design, the standard stator has three windings, while a single phase motor typically has two windings. The stator core is made up of a stack of round pre-punched laminations pressed into a frame which may be made of aluminium or cast iron. The laminations are basically round with a round hole inside through which the rotor is positioned. The inner surface of the stator is made up of a number of deep slots or grooves right around the stator. It is into these slots that the windings are positioned. The arrangement of the windings or coils within the stator determines the number of poles that the motor has. A standard bar magnet has two poles, generally known as North and South. Likewise, an electromagnet also has a North and a South pole. As the induction motor Stator is essentially like one or more electromagnets depending on the stator windings, it also has poles in multiples of two. i.e. 2 pole, 4 pole, 6 pole etc. The winding configuration, slot configuration and lamination steel all have an effect on the performance of the motor. The voltage rating of the motor is determined by the number of turns on the stator and the power rating of the motor is determined by the losses which comprise copper loss and iron loss, and the ability of the motor to dissipate the heat generated by these losses. The stator design determines the rated speed of the motor and most of the full load, full speed characteristics.
2. Rotor Design
The Rotor comprises a cylinder made up of round laminations pressed onto the motor shaft, and a number of short-circuited windings.The rotor windings are made up of rotor bars passed through the rotor, from one end to the other, around the surface of the rotor. The bars protrude beyond the rotor and are connected together by a shorting ring at each end. The bars are usually made of aluminium or copper, but sometimes made of brass. The position relative to the surface of the rotor, shape, cross sectional area and material of the bars determine the rotor characteristics. Essentially, the rotor windings exhibit inductance and resistance, and these characteristics can effectively be dependant on the frequency of the current flowing in the rotor. A bar with a large cross sectional area will exhibit a low resistance, while a bar of a small cross sectional area will exhibit a high resistance. Likewise a copper bar will have a low resistance compared to a brass bar of equal proportions.Positioning the bar deeper into the rotor, increases the amount of iron around the bar, and consequently increases the inductance exhibited by the rotor. The impedance of the bar is made up of both resistance and inductance, and so two bars of equal dimensions will exhibit a different A.C. impedance depending on their position relative to the surface of the rotor. A thin bar which is inserted radialy into the rotor, with one edge near the surface of the rotor and the other edge towards the shaft, will effectively change in resistance as the frequency of the current changes. This is because the A.C. impedance of the outer portion of the bar is lower than the inner impedance at high frequencies lifting the effective impedance of the bar relative to the impedance of the bar at low frequencies where the impedance of both edges of the bar will be lower and almost equal. The rotor design determines the starting characteristics.
3. Equivalent Circuit
The induction motor can be treated essentially as a transformer for analysis. The induction motor has stator leakage reactance, stator copper loss elements as series components, and iron loss and magnetising inductance as shunt elements. The rotor circuit likewise has rotor leakage reactance, rotor copper (aluminium) loss and shaft power as series elements. The transformer in the centre of the equivalent circuit can be eliminated by adjusting the values of the rotor components in accordance with the effective turns ratio of the transformer.From the equivalent circuit and a basic knowledge of the operation of the induction motor, it can be seen that the magnetising current component and the iron loss of the motor are voltage dependant, and not load dependant. Additionally, the full voltage starting current of a particular motor is voltage and speed dependant, but not load dependant. The magnetising current varies depending on the design of the motor. For small motors, the magnetising current may be as high as 60%, but for large two pole motors, the magnetising current is more typically 20 - 25%. At the design voltage, the iron is typically near saturation, so the iron loss and magnetising current do not vary linearly with voltage with small increases in voltage resulting in a high increase in magnetising current and iron loss.
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