AC MOTORS

1.0 Need for Negative Sequence Protection

Primary cause of motor failure is excessive heating, which if sustained over long time
periods will result in motor burn out. Over heating also reduces the life of motor. If a
motor is continuously over heated by just 10 degrees, its life can get reduced by almost
50%.

Over heating normally occurs due to over current, which in turn may be due to over
loads or locked rotor condition or low voltage or phase failure or repeat starts or phase
unbalance.

Bimetallic relays are most economical solution for heating due to over loads. However
they suffer from inherent deficiencies like poor accuracy, rigid inverse time
characteristics, poor repeatability etc. They are totally insensitive to current
unbalance, which is one of the major contributors to over heating in motors.

Though the three-phase motor is supposed to be a balanced load, current unbalance

occurs frequently in motor feeders due to following:

a) voltage unbalance in the feeder supply

b) phase reversal
c) single phasing

Current unbalance in a motor is best represented by the presence of excessive negative

sequence component in the motor current. Consequently it is necessary to protect motors
against negative sequence .

2.0 Supply Unbalance & Sequence components :

When the power supply to the motor is unbalanced, the unbalanced voltage and the
resulting unbalanced currents in the three phases can be resolved into three balanced
components as follows :

a) Positive Sequence component : This component is in the same phasesequence as

that of the motor current. All its three phases are perfectly balanced – they are
equal in magnitude and are displaced by 120 degrees. The positive sequence
component represents the amount of balance in the power supply and
consequently is instrumental in delivering useful power.

b) Negative Sequence component : This component has a phase sequence opposite

to that of the motor current hence the name negative sequence. It represents the
amount of unbalance in the feeder . All its three phases are perfectly balanced –
they are equal in magnitude and are displaced by 120 degrees. This component
does not produce useful power – however by being present it contributes to the
losses and causes temperature rise.
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c) Zero Sequence component : This , if present, represents extent of earth fault in

the feeder. All its three phases are in the same direction.

3.0 Effect of Unbalance in Motors :

3.1 When the supply voltage is unbalanced, the positive sequence component reduces and
results in low power delivery.

An unbalance of only 5% ( R phase = 415 V , Y phase = 415 V, B phase = 436 V) can

reduce the out put by 25%, even though the motor continues to draw the same current as
at the time of balanced condition. This means that the motor current has to increase
under unbalanced condition in order to deliver the same power. This increase will result
in motor heating.

3.2 During supply unbalance, negative sequence currents flow through the stator windings.
This results in induction of negative sequence voltage in the rotor windings. Since the
rotor is short circuited, this will result in abnormal current flow in the rotor and damage
the rotor winding. A voltage unbalance of the order of 3% can increase the heating by
nearly 20% in the rotor.

3.3 The negative sequence impedance of the motor is approximately same as the locked rotor
impedance which in turn is approximately one sixth of normal motor impedance. Due to
this even small voltage unbalance can produce large negative sequence current in the
motor.

3.4 The frequency of the negative sequence current induced in the rotor will be equal to
(supply frequency) x (2-slip) Hz. This is due to the fact that it is revolving in the opposite
direction . This frequency will be typically around 99 Hz during normal motor
operation . Due to skin effect, high frequency negative sequence currents encounter high
rotor resistance. This inturn results in over heating. The increased resistance is typically
5 times the normal positive sequence resistance.

4.0 Reasons for Unbalance :

Voltage unbalance can be due to many reasons. These include unsymmetrical loading,
blown fuses in capacitor banks and single phasing.

5.0 Single phasing :

Single phasing causes worst kind of unbalance – it produces equal amount of positive
and negative sequence components. The prime causes for single phasing are :

a) broken or burn out of connecting leads to motor

b) blown fuses
c) faulty contact in switching element
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To understand the effect of single phasing in motors, consider the condition shown
below .

It can be seen that the current in winding C will be larger than that in A and B and
consequently it will burn out. Typical currents in the windings are shown below >

Motor current Current in windings when single phasing has occured

(% of full load) (% of full load)

3 phase current Lines L1 & L3 Winding A&B Winding C

50 80 50 108
55 90 58 118
60 102 62 131
65 120 70 147
70 130 79 161
75 147 87 180
80 165 95 198
85 180 102 215
90 200 111 235
95 222 120 258
100 243 129 285

From the above table , we can see that in a motor running at 50% load, on single phasing
in L2,

a) the healthy lines L1 and L3 will carry 80% of full load

b) the windings will carry 50% of full load
c) the winding C carries more than twice full load (108%)

A thermal over load relay in this case , will not trip since it is seeing only 80% current
in healthy lines L1 & L3 while the winding C is already over stressed. This situation gets
worse with increasing loads at the time of single phasing.

A negative sequence calculation would have helped in this case.

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6.0 Phase reversal :

Phase reversal in a motor can be very dangerous – the motor will run in the opposite
direction resulting in severe damage to gear boxes, material flow problems and hazard to
operating personnel.

Phase reversal in a motor feeder produces a negative sequence of nearly 100% and is
well detected by a relay with negative sequence protection.

Considering the above details, it can be easily concluded that a motor protection relay will
provide an effective protection to the motor only when it is equipped to measure the
negative sequence component level in the motor feeder.