Transient skin effect in highly dynamic induction motor drives: energy-optimized design

• Published in: Electrical engineering Vol. 105; no. 2; pp. 1015 - 1024
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yuanpeng, Peng, Hujun, Hofmann, Wilfried
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Algorithms; Current loss; Design optimization; Economics and Management; Eddy currents; Electrical Engineering; Electrical Machines and Networks; Electromagnetic induction; Energy Policy; Engineering; Evolutionary computation; Induction motors; Mathematical analysis; Moments of inertia; Multiple objective analysis; Original Paper; Overheating; Particle swarm optimization; Power Electronics; Rotors; Skin effect; Squirrel cage motors; Torque; Induction motor drives; Loss minimization; Load cycle efficiency; Deep rotor bars; High torque dynamic; Low moment of inertia; Multi-objective optimization; Coupled multi-physics calculation; Differential evolution algorithm; Transient skin effect; Particle swarm optimization; Eddy current losses
• ISSN: 0948-7921; 1432-0487
• DOI: 10.1007/s00202-022-01712-3

Highly dynamic induction motor drives require converter-driven low-inertia induction machines, which are continuously operated with high torque dynamics to accelerate and brake linear or rotating masses in a highly dynamic manner. However, every rapid change in the torque requires a correspondingly rapid change in the rotor current, which leads to the excitation of the transient skin effect in the massive rotor bars of squirrel cage motors. The additional eddy current losses resulting from the transient skin effect can cause overheating problems, especially in the case of deep rotor bars with fast load cycles. This paper is intended to show the reader how the additional rotor losses caused by the transient skin effect can be reduced through the design optimization procedure. At the same time, the other operating characteristics of the induction motor drive are not impaired. In addition, the moment of inertia of the drive motor can also be reduced as another optimization target by the multi-objective optimization process. As the underlying optimization algorithm, the differential evolution and the particle swarm optimization are implemented and compared with each other in order to verify the correctness of the optimization results. During the whole optimization work, great importance is attached to the interdisciplinary calculation method so that the interaction between the electromagnetic, thermal, fluid mechanical and control engineering processes can be taken into account through the coupled calculation. In the end, the theoretical and simulative findings are verified with two test benches.