Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Marrakesh, Morocco, Mar.

2023, 2011 461

Comparison Study of Eddy Current Losses of Induction Motors Fed by SPWM and SVPWM Inverters
Jingjing Han1 , Ruifang Liu1 , and Hui Huang1, 2
1

School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China 2 State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Nanjing 210096, China

Abstract In this paper, a comparison study of eddy current losses in three-phase induction
motors fed by voltage source inverter with sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) and voltage space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) is presented. The simulation model of SPWM and SVPWM inverter are respectively established in MATLAB. After analyzing the harmonic spectrums of inverter output voltage, both the analytic method and FEA (nite element analysis) method are adopted to calculate the eddy current losses. The calculation results show that comparing with SPWM, SVPWM control method could decrease harmonic components of output voltage and reduce the iron losses of the motors. 1. INTRODUCTION

PWM (pulse width modulation) inverters are widely applied in speed control of motor devices. SPWM and SVPWM are two common modulation methods. Normally, there are high-order harmonics in the output voltage of PWM inverter, which increase the motor losses [1, 2]. The paper compared and analyzed the eddy current losses of induction motors fed by SPWM inverter and SVPWM inverter. After introducing the principles of SPWM and SVPWM, Matlab/simulink software was used to establish the simulation model of SPWM and SVPWM inverter respectively. The harmonic spectrums of inverter output voltage were obtained. Based on the superposition, the eddy current losses of induction motors fed by PWM inverter were calculated. The relation of the eddy current losses with the modulation ratio and carrier wave ratio were discussed. Eddy current losses discrepancy in SPWM and SVPWM was also compared. Finally, the electromagnetic eld nite element model of PWM-fed induction motor was established. After time-stepping nite element calculation, the rules between the eddy current losses and control parameters in SPWM and SVPWM were obtained. The research showed that high-order harmonics had large inuence to motor losses and decreased the eciency.
2. PRINCIPLE OF SPWM AND SVPWM

An inverter bridge that consists of six switches whose state of on or o is controlled by the PWM drives is used in a most common way. The outputs are connected to each motor terminal to supply the power for motor. The structure of the voltage-source inverter (VSI) for three-phase induction motor system is shown in Fig. 1. SPWM and SVPWM schemes are used to control the switching devices to generate approximate sinusoidal signals in the stator phases. Fig. 2 shows the general principle of SPWM. An isosceles triangle carrier wave is compared with a sinusoidal modulating wave, and the points of intersection determine the switching point of power devices. The output waveform of the inverter controlled by SPWM is a series of rectangle pulses, whose amplitudes are same and the widths are dierent. The switching angle control is decided by the switching frequency and modulation index, and the output fundamental wave amplitude has a linear relationship with the amplitude modulation index. And the change of the switching frequency can only change the center of the fundamental wave frequency distribution, which does little inuence on the amplitude of each harmonic [3]. It can be seen that the pulses in the output waveform have a sine weighting equivalent to the reference waveform. This method was realized rst with analog circuits, and it can be modeled in the MATLAB/simulink to generate a series of simulated PWM wave. At the present time, digital implementations are preferred and SVPWM is a typical one. There are six power switches in total in the three-phase VSI and when one of the switches in the upper half inverter bridge is opened, the corresponding one in the lower half bridge will be closed. So there are actually only 8 switching modes (000, 001, . . . , 111) existing in three-phase VSI. The Fig. 3 shows the corresponding eight voltage space vectors, and U1 U6 are called eective vectors which have the same length but the dierent phases and they divide the complex plane into six

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sectors I VI. U0 and U7 are called null vectors, having the length of 0 and locating in the centre of the complex plane. In SVPWM control technique, the reference voltage vector Vref rotates in the space with an angular frequency of . In each sector, the two adjacent eective voltage space vectors compose the reference voltage vector Vref as well as one of the two null vectors (U0 or U7 ) if necessary. These vectors are selected to equal Vref by means of dierent operating time of various vectors. When the power switches in the inverter are driven in a sequence the dierent vector combinations are generated. And the inverter outputs a cycle of equivalent sinusoidal voltage. They also can be realized in the MATLAB/simulink.
3. COMPARISON OF EDDY CURRENT LOSSES WITH SUPERPOSITION METHOD 3.1. Harmonic Analysis of SPWM and SVPWM Inverters

The PWM voltage-source inverter can bring harmonic distortion. Carrier wave ratio and modulation index are two important parameters in the PWM technique. The carrier wave ratio is dened as N = fs /f1 , where, f1 is the desired fundamental frequency of the inverter and fs is the switching frequency of the inverter. The amplitude modulation index is dened as M = Vcon /Vtri , where, Vcon is the peak amplitude of the control signal, and Vtri is the amplitude of the triangular waveform. There is a key parameter to indicate the ability the inverter output voltage and the parameter is utilization ratio of the DC link voltage. Usually it is dened as the ratio of fundamental amplitude of line voltage of inverter and DC bus voltage. There is a linear relationship between amplitude of line voltage and phase voltage, so the modulation index and DC voltage utilization ratio have a same meaning essentially. The simulation model of SPWM and SVPWM inverters are built in MATLAB/Simulink and a FFT analyzer is used to conduct the harmonic analysis. The comparison of harmonic between SPWM and SVPWM inverter has been implemented and the simulation and FFT analysis results are obtained as in Fig. 4. Set the two kinds of modulation methods at the same condition which is to keep M = 0.6 and N = 100, and adjust the output fundamental voltage to a same value. From the harmonic spectrum we can see that apart from the common law outsides, the SVPWM scheme has smaller harmonic wave amplitude near the hundredth order and other integral multiples of N , and less low-order harmonic wave components, which are the advantages compared to the SPWM scheme. So that
u uc ur

U3 (010) U3 (110) II III I VI V U6 (101) U1 (100)

Ud 2

V1

V3

V5

o
Ud 2

A V4

uo

B V6

C V2

Ud

uo1 uo

U7 (111) U4 (011) U8 (000)

t

IV U5 (001)

-Ud

Figure 1: Structure of threephase voltage source inverter.

Figure 2: The modulation wave of PWM.

Figure 3: Space vector hexagon diagram.

Figure 4: Comparison of harmonic between SPWM and SVPWM.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Marrakesh, Morocco, Mar. 2023, 2011 463

the less harmonic wave components imply the less iron losses of motor.
3.2. Eddy Current Losses Analysis of SPWM and SVPWM Schemes

The induction motor operating under non-sinusoidal supply has a more increment of losses due to the time harmonics. The analytic method based on the superposition principle is used to analyzing the inuence of modulation index and switching frequency of inverters. According to the Bertotti iron loss separate model, the conventional analysis model of losses is [4]: piron = ph + pc + pe = kh f B x + kc f 2 B 2 + ke f 1.5 B 1.5 (1) where the total iron losses piron is separated into three main components, the hysteresis loss ph , the classical eddy current loss pc , and the excess losses pe ; kh is the hysteresis losses coecient; kc is the classical eddy current losses coecient, ke is the excess losses coecient. Usually, the excess losses are a very small proportion in the total losses, so that it can be ignored and has no inuence on the nal results. Considering the relationship between index of ux density and the losses, the iron losses increasing when PWM supplied is mainly induced by the eddy current losses increment, so we will focus on the analysis of the eddy current losses. The output voltage of inverter contains the fundamental voltage and other high frequency harmonic voltages. Based on the superposition principle the total losses are equal to the sum of iron losses produced by fundamental voltage and all other orders harmonic voltages. So the specic expression is as following [5]: pc =
2 kc (fn )2 Bn =

kc (fn )2 (

Vn 2 ) = N Sfn

kc V2 =K (N S )2 n

2 Vn

(2)

where N is the eective number of windings, S is the section of magnet core, n is the harmonic wave order and K is an assumed coecient, and in this paper we set it as unit 1. Combing above equation and Fourier harmonic spectrum data of two PWM schemes, we can obtain the relationships between eddy current losses of and modulation index as well as carrier wave ratio of SPWM and SVPWM. Figure 5 shows the eddy current losses comparison between SPWM and SVPWM with the change of modulation index M and carrier wave ratio N . A constant fundamental frequency of f1 = 50 Hz is used. M is set as a constant value to nd the inuence of carrier wave ratio N on the eddy current losses, and keep the switching frequency changing from 0.5 kHz to 10 kHz. A comparison curve can be obtained. The losses have been calculated at DC bus voltage Vd = 300 V. We can see that only a small decrease of eddy current loss is observed when the carrier wave ratio increases. The loss is almost constant when changing carrier wave ratio N . So the inuence on the eddy current losses from the N is too little to be ignored. But there is a conspicuous change of eddy current losses when change the modulation index M . The eddy current losses drop with the increasing of M , which is applied to the two dierent PWM schemes. The reason is that the
54 52 50 48
120

SVPWM SPWM

eddy current losses(W)

46 44 42 40 38 36 34 32 30 0 50 100 150

eddy current losses(W)

M=0.7 SVPWM M=0.7 SPWM M=0.8 SVPWM M=0.8 SPWM M=0.9 SVPWM M=0.9 SPWM

100

M=0.8

80

60

40

20

200

50

100

150

200

250

300

carrier wave ratio N

Ulm

Figure 5: Eect of M and N on eddy current losses.

Figure 6: Losses comparison between SPWM and SVPWM at the same M .

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amplitude of harmonic components is relatively lower when the modulation index is higher [5]. The iron losses will decrease with the increasing of M . Considering this case, a high modulation index should be used to reduce the iron losses when PWM supplied. In conclusion, the eddy current loss is mainly related to the modulation index M but N . Simultaneously, it can be seen that the eddy current losses under SVPWM inverter is lower than that of SPWM. Fig. 6 is also a visualized indication of variation comparison of eddy current losses at a constant modulation index when the DC bus voltage changes from 100 V to 500 V, obviously, the SVPWM scheme has less eddy current losses. All of these results indicate the SVPWM scheme has less harmonic components and iron losses and that is a tremendous advantage compared to the SPWM scheme.
4. COMPARISON OF EDDY CURRENT LOSSES WITH FEA METHOD

In this section, taking into account the nonlinear magnetic property of the iron core, the timestepping FEA (nite element analysis) method is used to validate the results in the above calculations. An 11 kW class induction motor driven by the PWM power supply is analyzed by the 2D nonlinear time-stepping analysis. Fig. 7 shows results of the ux distribution and Fig.8 shows the curve of time-variation of the core loss at no load condition when using SVPWM scheme at given M and N . FEA calculations are carried out under SPWM and SVPWM supply with dierent parameters such as N and M . In order to make the comparison conveniently, set the coecient of eddy current losses kc = 1, the coecient of hysteresis losses kh = 0 and the excess losses coecient ke = 0. In this condition, the total core loss is just the eddy current losses. Keep the fundamental frequency f1 = 50 Hz, calculate the mean value of the core loss during one cycle time when the induction motor operates under steady state. Then we can obtain the iron losses when adopt dierent PWM schemes at a constant carrier wave ratio N and modulation index M . Table 1 shows the comparison of eddy current losses between SPWM, SVPWM and the sine wave supply. Similarly we make the two parameters carrier wave ratio and modulation index at a constant value. Obviously it can be seen that the eddy current losses when SVPWM scheme is implemented are less than the SPWM scheme, which is accordant to the conclusions in the last chapters analysis. The eddy current losses calculated by sine wave supply is less than the PWM supply and more than the SVPWM supply.

Ansoft LLC
120.00 100.00 80.00 60.00 40.00 20.00 0.00 40.00

XY Plot 2

Maxwell2DDesign1
Curve Info

ANSOFT

CoreLoss Setup1 : Transient

CoreLoss [uW]

60.00

80.00

Time [ms]

100.00

120.00

140.00

Figure 7: Flux distribution of induction motor.

Figure 8: Time-variation of the core loss at no load condition.

Table 1: Eddy current losses comparison between dierent PWM schemes at constant N = 100 and M = 0.9. Pc (W) Sine wave supply Pc (W) SPWM supply Pc (W) SVPWM supply 30 119 64

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Marrakesh, Morocco, Mar. 2023, 2011 465 5. CONCLUSIONS

The paper compared and analyzed the inuence on the eddy current losses of induction motors fed by SPWM inverter and SVPWM inverter. The relationship of eddy current losses with the two control parameters modulation index and carrier wave ratio is studied. Not only in SPWM scheme but also in SVPWM, the analyzed and calculated results show that the modulation index plays a more important role in the eddy current losses than the carrier wave ratio. The calculation results show that comparing with SPWM, SVPWM could decrease harmonic components of output voltage and reduce the iron losses of the motors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work is sponsored by State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves under Contract K201012.
REFERENCES

1. Boglietti, A., P. Ferraris, M. Lazzari, and M. Pastorelli, Inuence of the inverter characteristics on the iron losses in PWM inverter fed induction motors, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 32, No. 5, 11901194, Sept./Oct. 1996. 2. Yuan, D.-K., G.-Q. Xu, B. Hu, A. Xiang, and J.-S. Kang, Research on a novel SVPWM for three-phase VSI, IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC), Harbin, China, Sept. 35, 2008. 3. Zang, C., Z. Pei, J. He, T. Guo, J. Zhu, and W. Sun, Research on the application of CPSSPWM technology in cascaded multilevel inverter, International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, 14, Nov. 1518, 2009. 4. Huang, P.-L. and Q.-S. Hu, A novel model for predicting iron losses of electric machine fed by PWM inverter, Proceeding of International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, 10761079, Seoul, Korea, Oct. 811, 2007. 5. Liu, R., C. C. Mi, and D. W. Gao, Modeling of Eddy-current loss of electrical machines and transformers operated by pulsewidth-modulated inverters, IEEE Transactions on Magnetic, Vol. 4, No. 8, 20212028, 2008.