Contactless Power Supply for High Speed Rotating Rotor

Do Hyun Kang, Dae Hyun Koo, Mechatronics Research Group, Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, PO Box 20, Changwon, Kyungnam 641-120, Korea, EMail: dhkang@keri.re.kr, dhk371@keri.re.kr.
ABSTRACT The paper proposes a new application of contactless power supply technology [1-5] to transfer electric power to rotating rotors of synchronous electric machines (excitation system, usually placed in rotor). This new excitation system will keep the advantages of rapidity offered by static excitation combined with slip ring collector and the easy maintenance offered by brushless excitation system, avoiding the maintenance problems of the first system and the high time constant of exciter coil of the later. An application for a synchronous motor of 300 kW is also presented. 1. INTRODUCTION A.C. synchronous generators are the backbone of all our present-day electricity generation and transmission system. Thyristor excitation is widely applied and shows considerable advantages in economics and in overall power-system stability. There are two basic way of using thyristors for generator excitation [6]: Direct excitation of the generator field coils from a thyristor power supply, d.c. electric energy have been transferred to the rotating rotor by means of a slip ring collector and brushes (fig. 1). Brushless generator system. The use of a rotating a.c. exciter generator with diodes to rectify its output to feed the main generator field, using thyristors to supply the exciter generator field current (fig. 2). Figure 2 Brushless generator excitation system Response time for direct excitation system will be very fast and this can contribute significantly to the ability of the power supply system to cope with sudden load demands and system faults. But the slip ring-brushes system dont work properly at high speed and for high power (about 2% from the power of main generator), and needs a permanent maintenance. This slip ring-brushes system has a very high efficiency and low cost but has and some disadvantages as: Limited permissible speed; Low reliability; Sparkling effects, sensitivity against dust; Wear and tear and maintenance costs. The brushless excitation has many attractions to the user from the maintenance point of view. But the increased overall time constant caused by the the aditional rotating machine may lead to a higher degree of field forcing been needed on the exciter alternator. The system excitation of synchronous generator has not use usually permanent magnet excitation because of the requirements of assuring the power-system stability. In the case of high power synchronous motors the permanent magnet excitation also is not recommended because of the requirements of power factor control irrespective of the mechanical load taken from the shaft.

Ioan Vadan Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, C. Daicoviciu str. 15, 3400 Cluj-Napoca, Romania, E-Mail: i_vadan@yahoo.com.

Figure 1. Direct excitation system

Figure 3 Contactless Excitation System. To avoid the maintenance problems of the first system and the high time constant of exciter coil of the later, we proposed a third type of static excitation system for synchronous electrical machines, contactless excitation supply (figure 3). The contactless excitation power supply for synchronous machines, proposed in this paper, consists of a rotating transformer RT with the primary side (winding and magnetic core) separated by the secondary side (winding and magnetic core) by a small air gap. Because of the presence of air-gap the frequency will be increased. The primary side will be fed from a high frequency inverter and will be standstill. The secondary side will be placed on the rotor on the same way as at brushless excitation system, and it will feed the excitation coil by means of a rectifier, also placed on the rotor. But this rectifier will be fully commanded from outside because signal and data transfer is also possible with the same rotating transformer RT with minimal additional hardware. In such a way the response time will be small as in the case of direct thyristors excitation and the slip ring collector will be avoided as in the case of brushless excitation system. Because of the high frequency needed for operation of rotating transformer, the rectified voltage (for excitation) will have very small ripple and dont need filtering. 2. OPERATING PRINCIPLE OF ROTATING TRANSFORMER (RT) According to [1], the main structure of an rotating transformer is presented in figure 4.

Figure 4. Rotating transformer structure; 1 Stator fixture, fixed at generator stator; 2 ferrite standstill structure; 3 Power standstill coil; 4 information standstill coil; 5 Information moving coil; 6 Power rotating coil; 7 rotating part fixture, coupled with generator rotor shaft. Summarized below are the main features of rotating transformers for contactless power transfer: Efficiency of up to 96%. Both primary and secondary systems are resonant so that losses and harmonics are minimized. Power: Hundreds of kWs may be transferred [14]. Large Airgap: Power may be transferred across airgaps of 100 mm and more. Maintenance: No brush wear or moving parts ensure that the RT excitation system is virtually maintenance free. Data Transfer: Signal and data transfer is possible with RT with minimal additional hardware. Speed: With slip ring collector speed is a limiting factor. With RT excitation system speed of operation is unlimited. Safety: All components are fully enclosed and insulated. Hence the system is fully touch proof. Sensitive Environments: The fact that no carbon dust, other wear or sparks are generated make RT excitation system suitable for sensitive or hazardous environments. 3. DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF ROTATING TRANSFORMERS (RT) The goal of the design calculations is the determination of main geometrical dimensions of rotating transformer which can be shown in figure 4. It is starting from the well known magnetic induction law:

d u1 = N 1 = N 1 c o t = U 1 c o t s s dt , U = U 1 = 2 f N 1 1 1 2
(1) where 1 = 1 sin , 1^=SFe*BFe is the peak-value of magnetic flux coupling the primary winding, =2 f - is the pulsation and f is the frequency. The primary power will be:

P1 = U 1 I 1 =

U1 I1 = = f 1 N 1 I 1 . 2

(2)

From this relation we can see that to increase the power the best way is to increase the frequency because the increasing of magnetic flux lead to large transversal section area of magnetic core and the increasing of magnetomotive force (N1I1) lead to increasing the copper mass. The increasing of the copper mass means the increasing of magnetic core window and hence and of the core mass. Another problem is the presence of a very large air-gap of the magnetic core, about g=5 mm. This large air-gap requires a very large magnetizing current, according to the Ampere law written below:

F1 = 2 S w1 J a1 k f 1 ,
(7) where Sw1 is the primary window area; Ja1 is the permissible current density in primary conductor and kf1 is the filling factor of primary window. From here we can calculate the primary window area and then the diameter D3 if we choose the window height h1+h2. The diameter D4 will be calculated in order to assure for the outer yoke the magnetic core cross-section area SFe. The secondary window can be a little small than the primary because of the lack of magnetizing current, but from symmetry reasons we can take the secondary side of the same shape and dimensions as the primary side. 4. APPLICATION The design methodology presented before will be used to electromagnetic design of a rotating transformer excitation system (RTES) for synchronous motors of 300KW rated power. 4.1 Magnetic core design Taking in account that the needed excitation power of a synchronous electric motor is about 2% from the main machine power, the rated power of RTES will be:

F1 = H dl = H Fe l Fe + H g g =
C

Bg g B Fe l Fe + = N 1 i1 rFe 0 0

(3)

where: N1 is the number of turns of primary windings; i1 - is the transformer magnetizing current; g is the air-gap length; Bg is the magnetic flux density in the air-gap; BFe is the magnetic flux density in the ferrite magnetic core; lFe is the length of magnetic flux line in the ferrite core; 0 is the air magnetic permeability and rFe is the relative magnetic permeability of ferrite material. Because of the high value of the rFe (>1000) the first term is negligible. The secondary term, usually do not appear in a classical transformer, but now it has a high value. This value requires a high magnetizing current. In such a way we must to enlarge the dimensions of primary coil. If we imposed the values for frequency f, the air-gap length g, the magnetic flux density in the air-gap Bg and in the core BFe, we can calculate the cross-section area of the magnetic core SFe with relation (2) and (3). The diameter D1 of the shaft will be calculated from mechanical resistance reasons and then knowing the SFe we can calculate the diameter D2. It should be known that the primary current has two components: i1 = i11 + i1 , (4) where i11 is the util current and i1 is the magnetizing current, but they are adding vectorial. Because the first current is almost active and the latter is pure inductive and the magnetizing current is of the same value as the util current we can assume that the overall current is: I 1 2 I 1 . (5) From (1), if we impose the primary voltage U1, we can calculate the primary numbers of turns N1, and then the total primary magnetomotive force:

P1 =

2 300 = 6kW . 100

(8) A lot of initial data will be also imposed: U1=560V; U2=323V; Frequency f=20 kHz; BFe=0.2T; Bg=0.05T; g=5mm; kf1=0.2, it take in consideration and skin effect; Ja1=3 A/mm2. From the relation (3) we can calculate:

F1

Bg

g =

0.05 5 10 3 = 200 A 7 4 10

(9)

F1 = 2 N1 I1 = 2 F1
But:

According to (6) the overall magnetomotive force will be: F1 = 2 F1 282 .8 A . (10) From relation (2) we can calculate the primary coupling magnetic flux:

(6)

1 =
(11)

P1 6000 = = 0.34 mWb . fF1 20000 282 .8

Now, we can calculate the magnetic core crosssection area:

S Fe =

1 34 10 5 = = 17 10 4 m 2 .(12) B Fe 0.2

The effective primary conductor section area is:

If we impose the shaft diameter D1=30mm from mechanical resistance reasons (its calculations is not the subject of this paper), we can calculate the next diameter:

sCu 1 =

I 12 + I 12 J a1

10 .7 2 + 11 .12 = 5mm 2 (21) 3

and the diameter of this conductor will be:

D2 = 30 2 +
aria:

D +
2 1

d1 =

S Fe =
. (13)

4 s Cu1 4 5 = = 3.2mm . k f 0.6

(22)

1700 = 56 mm

Now we will calculate the primary window

S w1 =

F1 2 J a1 k f 1

282 .8 2 3 0.2

= 334 mm 2 (14)

These conductors can be put in four layers of five conductors on a layer in the frame of 17x20 mm2. If we dont use litz-wire, we must take in account the skin effect. According with this phenomenon, the high frequency current will path only through a thin layer placed at the surface of conductor and having the penetration thickness:

1 = 503

r f

=
. (23)

If we impose the height of primary window h1+h2=20+5=25mm, we can calculate the width of primary window:

a1 =

S w1 334 = 17 mm . h1 20
The next diameter will be:

0.0172 10 6 503 = 0.5mm 1 20000

(15)

The diameter of full conductor will be:

d=

D3 = D2 + 2 a1 = 56 + 2 17 = 90 mm . (16)
The outer diameter of magnetic core will be:

sCu1 5 = = 3.2mm . 1 0.5

(24)

D4 = 90 +
2

2 D3 +

S Fe =
. (16)

It can be seen that in this case the diameters are similar. The secondary winding design can be made on the same way. 5. FEM SIMULATION OF RTES MAGNETIC FIELD The goal of magnetic field simulation by Finite Elements Method (FEM) is to check the correctness of magnetic flux density imposed in the magnetic core BFe=0.2T and in the air gap Bg=0.05T. It has been used the FEM computational program EMFCAD, elaborated in the frame of Changwon University, Korea [7]. The results are presented in figures 5,6 and 7.

1700 = 102 mm

And yoke width will be:

S 1700 h3 = Fe = = 10mm D2 56
4.2 Transformer coils design

(17)

Now, we can design and the primary and secondary windings. From relation (1) we can write:

N1 =

2 U1 2 f 1

=
(18)

2 560 18 turns . 2 20000 0.34 10 3

I 1 = F1 N1 = 200 = 11 .1A . 18

The primary magnetizing current will be: (19) A (20) A

The primary util curent will be:

P 6000 I1 = 1 = = 10 .7 A . U1 560

It can be seen that the assumption that these both currents are of the same value but of the different phases is correct.

Fig. 5 The magnetic flux flow-chart of the designed RTES From this picture can be seen the high level of primary stray magnetic flux. From 15 primary magnetic flux lines only 4 is coupling and the secondary windings that means a dispersion factor:

Fig.7 The magnetic flux density By in the core, (section B-B) It can be seen, that the magnetic flux density By in the inner core is about 0.19T and in the outer core about 0.15T, very close to 0.2T, value used in the analytical design. 6. CONCLUSIONS In the first paper approaching this research field, our team presented the main features, the methodology design and the FEM simulation of the main part of Contactless Excitation System for Synchronous Machines (CESSM) Rotating Transformer (RT). The rest of CESSM will be presented in a future paper. Because of the using of high frequency, the dimensions of a transformer of significant power (6 kVA) are very small (outer diameter 102 mm and length 75 mm). The rotor rectifier is also of the small dimensions because of the actually advances in the field of power electronics, and this rectifier will be controlled, the command signals coming by another pair of rotating transformer data windings. So this excitation system will be very fast and maintenance free, fitted for all types of synchronous machines with requirements of excitation forcing and voltage or power factor regulations. The contactless excitation systems presented in [9] and [10] are conceived with older electronics components and for special applications. Can be imagined and hibrid systems [9]: contactless excitations system for a.c. exciter of an brushless synchronous motor. REFERENCES

k =

t 15 = = 3.75 u 4

(25)

very close to the value imposed at the design:

k =

t B S B 0 .2 = Fe Fe Fe = = 4 ,(26) u Bg S g Bg 0.05

Fig, 6 The magnetic flux density By, in the middle of the air-gap (section A-A) It can be seen that in ihe inner air-gap the medium value of the magnetic flux density is about 0.06T, and in the outer air-gap is only about 0.03 T, that means an overall average value of 0.045T very close to the value take in account at design (0.05T).

1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, Induction Contactless Energy Transmission System for an Electric Vehicle, Procc. Of ICEM96, Vigo, Spain, pp. 343 347. Jurgen Meins, Contactless Power Supply for Transport Systems, Procc. Of MAGLEV98, Damanashi, Japan, pp. 268-273. http://www.vahle.de/ http://www.wampfler.com/ M. Jufer, M. Perrottet, "Contactless Energy and Information Transmission for Electric Drives", First International Symposium on Advanced Electromechanical Motion Control Systems, Electromotion'95, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, May 2526, 1995, pp. 1-8.

6.

D. Finney, The Power Thyristor and its Applications, McGraw-Hill, 1980, London, UK. 7. G.R. Slemon, A. Straughen, Elrctric Machines, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1982. 8. Electromagnetic-Field Computation Program, EMF CAD Ver. 1.0, CMS Technology Inc., Korea. 9. M. L. Waters, Field Excitation System for Synchronous Machines Utilizing a Rotating Transformer Brushless Exciter Generating Combination, patent US3908161/1975, Applicant GEN ELECTRIC. 10. Stich Frederik, Brushless Exciter for Controlling Excitation of a Synchronous Machine, patent US4659973/1987, Applicant SIEMENS ENERGY&AUTOMAT (US).