University of Baghdad

College of Engineerig
Mechanical Department

A.C Series
Motor

Name : Haider Salman Hamza

SEC : C
Email : [email protected]
 AC Series Motor

AC series motors are also known as the modified DC series motor as their construction is very similar to
that of the DC series motor.it also called the universal motor is an electric motor which operates in either
Ac or Dc power at the same speed and output. Also Ac series motor is a modified Dc series motor!! What
does this mean; it means that we modify the Dc series motor to be able to work in Ac single phase supply as:

1) We laminate the entire magnetic circuit of the Dc series motor so the eddy current loss reduces, but
this means the construction of the Ac motor will be more expensive.

2) We use a few turns series field windings so the reluctance of the field winding reduces; By the way,
the voltage drop across the field windings reduces and the power factor improved.

3) Also, a low reluctance magnetic circuit is used to obtain a high field flux.

4) And we use a high resistance lead that connects the coils and the commutator segments to eliminate
the possible sparking produced between the brushes and the commutator when the motor works on
Ac supply.

 It’s important to know that the relative efficiency of small universal motors is about 30% and of the largest
motors is about 70_75%.

So considering above points we can say that we don’t have good performance of DC series motor on the application of
AC supply. Now in order to reduce the eddy currents there is need to laminate the yoke and field core. This is our first
modification to DC series motor.

Applications of universal motor:

Before we search for characteristics and operation of Ac motor it’s important to know where we use the
series motor; Ac motor has a high starting torque, it’s cheap so we can find it in many industrial and
domestic applications as:

 Sewing machines.  Food Mixers.

 Electric traction.  Locomotives.

 Hoists.  Hand tools.

 Kitchen applications.  Grinding mills.

 Hairdryers.  Vacuum cleaner.

 Table fans.  And electric shavers.

 Portable drills.

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 Working principle of Ac series motor:
Of course, the working principle of the Ac motor doesn’t differ a lot than the Dc motor, but it’s able to run
on both Ac and Dc current; We have a wound armature and field that are interconnected in series.

When we apply an alternating E.M.F to the terminals, alternating current flows through both the field and
the armature windings; So the field winding produces an alternating flux (this produced flux is only
alternating not rotating) this flux reacts with the armature current to produce torque.

Characteristics of Ac series motor:

There are some characteristics or features of the Ac motor such as:

 It’s self-starting and it has a high starting torque so we don’t require a starting device.
 Has a lightweight besides, it’s compact.
 It’s easy to control it.
 It operates at high speed (1500_15000 r.p.m).
 We can use tapped coils which makes the motor electromechanically or electronically.
 And unfortunately, it’s typically very noise (acoustically and electromagnetically) because of the
commutator.
 The power factor is about 90% at full load.

Types of Ac series motor:

That’s very well, but we have a big problem with the universal motor; The series motor has a fewer number
of turns as we said to reduce the reluctance of the field winding but when we reduce the turns the field
mmf decreases and by the way the air gap flux decrease and that makes the speed of the motor increases and
the torque decreases and it’s desired.

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To solve this problem we use a compensating
winding which may be connected to give us:

1- Conductively compensated motor:

In conductively motor, we connect the compensating winding in series with the armature circuit and we put
it in the stator slots; The electrical axis of this compensating winding is 90o with the main field axis.

2- Inductively compensated motor:

In inductively motor, there is no interconnection between the compensating winding and the armature circuit
there is a transformer action; The armature winding acts as a primary winding of the transformer and the
compensating winding acts as the secondary of the transformer. The current flows in the armature winding
will be in phase opposition to the current in the compensating winding.

Phasor Diagram for AC Series Motor

We will discuss here the simplest way of drawing the phasor diagram for an AC series motor. Before we
draw phasor diagram, let us write the various notations for each quantity at one place. Here we will use:

Rs to represent the resistance of the series field I to represent the current in the circuit
Rp to represent the resistance of the inter pole circuit Φ to represent the flux produced by the current I
Rc to represent the resistance of the compensation winding
Ra to represent the resistance of the armature circuit
Xs to represent the reactance of the series field
Xp to represent the reactance of the inter pole circuit
Xc to represent the reactance of the compensation winding
Xa to represent the reactance of the armature circuit

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We have assumed that the flux produced by the current I is in phase with the current I due very small
lagging angle. On taking the current on the reference axis we have terminal voltage equals to summation of
all the voltage drops and the counter emf. We have summation of the voltage drops equal.

The main advantage of the phasor diagram of the AC series motor is that we can easily obtain the phase
angle for counter emf E with the help of phasor diagram.

Given below is the phasor diagram for the AC series motor.

Now let us discuss various characteristics of the AC series motor. There are five important characteristics
of an AC series motor which are written below:

1. Power factor characteristics

2. Speed current characteristics
3. Torque current characteristics
4. Torque speed characteristics
5. Power output characteristics

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 1) Power Factor Characteristics

We can derive the expression for power factor with the help of phasor diagram given above. From the
phasor diagram we write sine of angle φ as

Clearly from the above equation we can say that if we want the high value of power factor, the value of
reactance and counter emf should low as minimum as possible. From point of view of loading, we have low
value of power factor at over loading and it is due to the fact that the high value of current. Thus the high
value of power can be achieved only if the load is very light.

2) Speed Current Characteristics

In order to the understand speed current characteristic let us derive an expression for speed in terms of
counter emf. We have a proportional relationship between the counter emf and speed of the motor. Thus if
the value of the counter emf is large then the value of speed will be more. From the phasor diagram we can
say that the counter emf is equal to the difference between the terminal voltage and the voltage drops. Hence
if current cause’s higher voltage drops then the generated back emf will be less therefore the speed of the
motor will be less. Now let us analyse and compare speed current characteristics for both AC and DC series
motor. Let us first consider the case of DC series motor: In case of DC series motor we have high value of
counter emf because the value of voltage drop here is small. The voltage drops here is due to resistive drops
mainly therefore the value of voltage drop is low. Now Let us consider the case of AC series motor: In case
of AC series motor we have a low value of counter emf because the value of voltage drop here is large. The
voltage drops here is due to resistive drops and reactance drop therefore the value of voltage drop is high. It
means the speed current characteristics curve for the DC series are less dropping than the AC series motor.
Given below are the characteristics for both the AC and DC series motor.

3) Torque Current Characteristics

After neglecting the small value of phase angle (angle between the flux and the current) and saturation effect
we can say that the value of the torque is directly proportion to the value of square of the current. Therefore
the variation of torque with the current can plotted as shown in the figure given below:

4) Torque Speed Characteristics

The relation between the torque and speed can derived with the help of torque current and speed current
characteristics. The torque speed characteristics are plotted as shown in the given diagram.

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 5) Power Output Characteristics

The mechanical output power developed by the AC series motor can be calculated by the product of the
counter emf and current. The value of mechanical power developed is directly proportion to the value of the
current, if we neglect the decrement in value of the counter emf. The counter emf slightly decreases with the
increase in the value of the current.

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Referances

 www.electrical4u.com
 3𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠/ AC Machins / Dr. Inaam Ibrahim
 www.top-ee.com
 Electric Motors and Drives Fundamentals, Types and Applications by Austin Hughes