SYNCHRONOUS MACHINE : Construction details and types

The synchronous generator converts mechanical energy from the turbine into electrical energy. This type of generator requires a winding carrying direct current (or in small sizes a series of permanent magnets) to establish the magnetic flux. Mostly in all machines this excitation winding (known as the field winding) is carried on the rotor, which for a 50 or 60 Hz output must rotate at the synchronous speed.

The synchronous generator has two parts:

Stator: Stator carries 3 (3-phase) armature windings, AC, physically displaced from each other by 120 degrees Rotor: Rotor carries field windings, connected to an external DC source via slip rings and brushes or to revolving DC source via a special brushless configuration.

** There are two types of synchronous generator based on the type of rotor used :

1)Turbogenerators
This family of machines use a cylindrical rotor in which the field winding is housed in axial slots. They are invariably driven by a steam turbine or a gas turbine. At ratings below 60MW a gear box may be used to provide a rotational speed of 3600 (2 pole) or 1800 rev/min(4 pole) to provide power at 60 Hz, or 3000 rev/min (2 pole) or 1500 rev/min (4 pole) to provide power at 50 Hz. Alternatively, and especially at higher power ratings the generator is directly driven by the steam or gas turbine. The rotors will thus have either two or four poles. Smaller machines may use a laminated construction for the rotor while larger machines will use a forged rotor. A feature of these machines is that their length is several times their diameter. Power outputs range from a few megawatts up to about 1500MW. The machine is cooled by circulating air or hydrogen over the active parts or water through the windings. Hydrogen was commonly used for outputs greater than about 50MW; water was, and still is, used for the stator winding with outputs exceeding about 200MW. Air-cooled machines are now available upto almost 200MW.

2) Hydrogenerators
This type of generators uses salient pole type rotor which are driven by water turbines at a speed in the range 50 1000 rev/min. The speed depends on the type of turbine, which in turn depends on the head and the flow rate of the water available. At low speeds, the permissible rotor diameter will be several times its active length. Generally, the largest allowable diameter of rotor is used to maximize the machine's inertia which is an important part of governing the water turbine. Outputs up to 800MW have been achieved. A small high-speed unit will have a horizontal shaft, but for reasons of mechanical construction and stability larger machines have vertical shafts. The synchronous generator is so-named because it functions properly only at synchronous speed that. Synchronous speed can be defined as the speed for which the induced voltage in the armature (stator) windings is synchronized with (has same frequency as) the network voltage.

Field excitation
A source of direct current is required for the field winding, as sketched in Figure 2. In very small synchronous generators, this current may be supplied from an external source by fitting the generator shaft with two insulated copper (or slip) rings, connecting the field coil ends to the rings and providing a connection to the external source through fixed carbon brushes bearing on the rings. The power required for the field winding is that which is dissipated as heat in the winding resistance. In large generators, this is usually less than 1 percent of the generator rating, but in a generator with a capacity of 1,000 megavolt-amperes this will still be several megawatts. For most large synchronous generators, the field current is provided by another generator, known as an exciter, mounted on the same shaft. This may be a direct-current generator. In most modern installations, a synchronous generator is used as the exciter. For this purpose, the field windings of the exciter are placed on its stator and the phase windings on its rotor. A rectifier mounted on the rotating shaft is used to convert the alternating current to direct current. The field current of the main generator can then be adjusted by controlling the field current of the exciter.

Generator rating
The capacity of a synchronous generator is equal to the product of the voltage per phase, the current per phase, and the number of phases. It is normally stated in megavolt-amperes (MVA) for large generators or kilovolt-amperes (kVA) for small generators. Both the voltage and the current are the effective, or rms, values (equal to the peak value divided by 2). The voltage rating of the generator is normally stated as the operating voltage between two of its three terminals i.e., the phase-to-phase voltage. For a winding connected in delta, this is equal to the phase-winding voltage. For a winding connected in wye, it is equal to 3 times the phase-winding voltage. The capacity rating of the machine differs from its shaft power because of two factorsnamely, the power factor and the efficiency. The power factor is the ratio of the real power delivered to the electrical load divided by the total voltagecurrent product for all phases. The efficiency is the ratio of the electrical power output to the mechanical power input. The difference between these two power values is the power loss consisting of losses in the magnetic iron due to the changing flux, losses in the resistance of the stator and rotor conductors, and losses from the windage and bearing friction. In large synchronous generators, these losses are generally less than 5 percent of the capacity rating. These losses must be removed from the generator by a cooling system to maintain the temperature within the limit imposed by the insulation of the windings.

Salient Poles Designs

Salient pole machines are typically found in large (many MW), low mechanical speed applications, including hydrogenerators, or smaller higher speed machines (up to 1-2 MW). Salient pole machines can be constucted in pieces and then assembled later. Each pole of the machine has its own field winding which is bolted on to the rotor shaft. An illustration of a 4-pole salient pole rotor is shown below: Each pole has a winding (which may be constructed away from the rotor), placed around a pole body, with a "pole face" bolted on top. The pole face may have a different curvature than the stator surface, making the resulting flux density more sinusoidal. Salient pole machines are more difficult to model than round rotor machines. The torque and power characteristics are also different than those for round rotor machines. In EE 332 we only consider round rotor machines, but you should know the fundamental differences in the design of slaient pole machines

Round-Rotor Machines
Machines with cylindrical rotors are typically found in higher speed higher power applications such as turbogenerators. Using 2 or 4 poles, these machines rotate at 3600 or 1800 rpm (with 60hz systems). Remember that machine power is a function of the size of the machine. If a high power high speed machine were to be made with salient poles, the design would cause difficulties in 2 areas: the uneven air gap length could cause unacceptable turbulence in the air gap, the centrifugal forces around the periphery of the machine make it difficult to maintain the mechanical integrity. A cylindrical design is significantly stonger and has much lower windage losses than a salient pole machine. A simplified cross-section of a cylindrical rotor is shown below.

Why Damper windings used in synchronous machines:

Synchronous motors are not self starting machines. These machines are made self starting by providing a special winding in the rotor poles, known as damper winding or squirrel cage windings. The damper winding consists of short circuited copper bars embedded in the the face of the rotor poles When an ac supply is provided to stator of a 3-phase synchronous motor, stator winding produces rotating magnetic field. Due to the damper winding present in the rotor winding of the synchronous motor, machine starts as induction motor (Induction machine works on the principle of induction. Damper windings in synchronous motor will carryout the same task of induction motor rotor windings. Therefore due to damper windings synchronous motor starts as induction motor and continue to accelerate). The exciter for synchronous motor moves along with rotor. When the motor attains about 95% of the synchronous speed, the rotor windings is connected to exciter terminals and the rotor is magnetically locked by the rotating magnetic field of stator and it runs as a synchronous motor.

Functions of Damper Windings:

- Damper windings helps the synchronous motor to start on its own (self starting machine) by providing starting torque - By providing damper windings in the rotor of synchronous motor "Hunting of machine"can be suppressed.When there is change in load, excitation or change in other conditions of the systems rotor of the synchronous motor will oscillate to and fro about an equilibrium position. At times these oscillations becomes more violent and resulting in loss of synchronism of the motor and comes to halt