FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR PERFORMANCES PREDICTION OF A SMALL

SYNCHRONOUS GENERATOR USING ANSYS SOFTWARE

M. Amine Khalf and René Wamkeue Davide Aguglia

Québec University in Abitibi-Témiscamingue LEEPCI Lab., Laval University

J9X 5E4, Rouyn-Noranda, QC, Canada G1K 7P4, Laval, QC, Canada
[email protected] [email protected]
[email protected]

ABSTRACT power generators manufacturers are not interested in launch-

ing a new production line and core business for building very
The paper presents a finite element (FE) based efficient anal- small synchronous generators.
ysis procedure for very small three-phase synchronous ma-
chines. Two FE formulation approaches are proposed to ach-
ieve this goal : the magnetostatic and the non-linear transient Salient-pole synchronous machines have been used for
time stepped formulations. This combination allows us to pre- decades as low-speed alternators in electric power plants. No-
dict the steady-state and the transient performance at no-load wadays, their design process has reached a great level of ma-
and in the case of a line-to-line short circuit fault. The method turity, especially for high-power generators. The introduc-
is successfully applied for replication and modeling of a small tion of hybrid analytical and numerical methods has permit-
120-VA, 4-salient pole, 208-V and 60-Hz, wound rotor labo- ted the optimization of their design, simplifying and reducing
ratory synchronous generator. The closeness of FE simulated the cost of parameters tuning and validation process before
and experimental results greatly attest to the effectiveness of manufacturing [1], [2].
the proposed FE based small-generator modeling framework.
The stability analysis, performances prediction, control,
Index Terms— Finite elements, transient electromagnetic diagnosis and design of protection settings require an accurate
analysis, performance predictions, small synchronous machi- knowledge of the synchronous machine parameters. IEEE
ne, experimental setup and validation Sdt-115 standard recommend different tests in order to de-
termine above mentioned parameters [3]: open-circuit test,
1. INTRODUCTION short-circuit test, tests at standstill and sudden three-phase
short-circuit at a reduced voltage operation. All these tests
The training of technical staff is a major concern today for can be conducted using modern finite elements method. Var-
companies of production, transportation and distribution of ious studies, based on state-of-the-art techniques, have been
electric energy. Generally, two training approaches are used: conducted for synchronous machines leading to remarkably
theoretical and practical. The second one is the most restric- results [4]-[5]. However, all these studies focus on high and
tive since it has to be carried out at the site of a hydroelectric medium power synchronous generators (rated power≥10-kW)
plant. In fact, a more convenient practical training approach and not on small machines for which the electromagnetic, me-
requires the disconnection of generators from the power net- chanical and thermal considerations associated with their de-
work. However, this approach could lead to high costs and sign are quite different [6]-[7].
risks for the power planter owner. In order to overcome such
constraints, many power companies and power research cen- In this work, the finite element method has been used for
ters around the world are increasingly using an analog sim- modeling of a small 120-VA, 208-V, and 60-Hz laboratory
ulator, which is a miniature replica of a hydroelectric plant, synchronous generator. The electromagnetic characteristic as
to emulate the full scale behavior. As a key element of en- well as steady-state and transients performances prediction of
ergy production, it is obvious that a very small salient-pole the generator are derived using magneto-static and transient
synchronous generator will play an important role in such a time-stepped formulations, taking into account the magnetic
power plant simulator. However, today, the design of a very saturation and eddy currents effects. The sudden three-phase
small synchronous machine with parameters and time con- short-circuit test is performed at the very end of the process.
stants which allow obtaining similar transient behavior than All FEM numerical results are compared with experimental
high power generators is a great challenge. In fact, large data.

2012 25th IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE)
978-1-4673-1433-6/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
 2. MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION

The mathematical formulation of a magnetic problem with

specific boundaries conditions is based on well-known Max-
well’s equations that completely define the electromagnetic
field. The formulation to be adopted depends on the fre-
quency contents to be considered. In the next section, for-
mulations used for analysis of small synchronous machines
are presented.

2.1. Magneto-static problem

Using the relation between the magnetic field H and current
density J, the constitutive laws of the used materials and the Fig. 1: View of the three-phase small synchronous laboratory
formula linking the induction B and the magnetic vector po- generator
tential A, we can express the magnetic field by the following
non-linear PDE:

∂

∂A

∂

∂A
 Parameters Values Units
ν + ν = J, (1) General Rated Power 120 VA
∂x ∂x ∂y ∂y
Rated line voltage 208 V
where ν is the reluctivity of the studied region; A (x, y) ẑ is Rated speed 1800 RPM
the magnetic vector potential, where ẑ is the unit vector in Number of poles 4 -
the z-direction, x and y are the Cartesian coordinates in the Rated frequency 60 Hz
radial cross-section plane of the machine and the z-axis lies Machine active length 35.7 mm
along the rotating axis of the machine; J (x, y) ẑ is the current Air-gap thickness 3 mm
density vector.
Rotor Number of phases 3 -
Type of connection Y -
2.2. Transient time-stepping problem Number of slots 36 -
Number of layers 2 -
The general non-linear and time dependent equation for a syn-
Number of turns per coil 43 -
chronous machine is given by
Number of parallel circuits 1 -
    Phase winding resistance 125 Ω
∂ ∂A ∂ ∂A ∂A Armature winding material copper -
ν + ν =J+σ , (2)
∂x ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂t Stator Type of poles salient -
Pole width 26.1 mm
where σ is the conductivity of the studied region. In the FE Number of turns per coil 1250 -
simulation, it is necessary to consider: a) the integral formu- Field winding resistance 12.5 Ω
lation of the partial differential equation system, b) the simul- Field winding material copper -
taneous windings currents and voltages, c) the connection to
an external circuit [8], d) the discretization of the time step [9] Table 1: Generator design and electrical parameters
and e) the rotor motion to obtain the evolutionary formulation.

3. MODELING METHODOLOGY
lamination. The circuit-coupled models utilized the circuit
The machine under study is a very small three-phase salient shown in Fig.3. On top of the figure is the stator phase cir-
poles synchronous generator as illustrated in Fig.1. The ma- cuit; the phase windings present in the model are A+, A-, B+
chine is manufactured for educational purposes. A brief list- and C-. The leakage inductors are added to each phase of
ing of the machine characteristics and design parameters are the output voltage circuit in order to account for the armature
provided in Table1. end-winding leakage reactance. The resistors Rs1, Rs2 were
The finite element modeling technique utilizes odd peri- used as switches by adjusting their value to 106 Ω for an open-
odic symmetry along with a sliding interface at the air gap circuit and 10−12 Ω for a short-circuit. The magnetic non-
interface. Fig.2 shows a view of the 2-D geometry and mesh linearity of the iron core was represented by BH curves. The
which was used for all simulations. For all models, a Dirich- resistance of the rotor and stator windings was represented by
let condition was applied at the outer diameter of the stator the resistance Rf and Rϕ in the circuit, respectively.
 (a) (b)

Fig. 4: Magnetic field distribution at no-load and nominal

field current (a) Magnetic vector potential (b) flux lines
Fig. 2: FE Model and mesh of the laboratory Generator

Fig. 5: Open-circuit saturation curve

Fig. 3: Electrical circuit model

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A series of Finite Element (FE) electromagnetic simulations

were performed, using the software package ANSYS [10] and
its powerful APDL language, in order to evaluate the charac-
teristics and prediction of performances of the investigated Fig. 6: Flux density distribution along the air-gap at no-load
generator.

4.2. Flux density distribution at the air-gap line

From the field solution, one can determine the flux density
4.1. Open-circuit Saturation Curve distribution in an arbitrary path of the studied machine. In
Fig.6 is presented the radial flux density distribution in the
The open-circuit saturation curve of the synchronous gener- middle line of the air-gap over one pole pitch. The flux is pro-
ator is determined from magnetostatic simulation for values duced only by nominal field current . We can clearly notice
of field current 0 < If < 1.2If n . Magnetic field distribu- the influence of the stator slots and teeth on the shape and the
tion produced by magnetizing currents is shown in Fig.4. A value of the flux density.
comparison of FEM and test data results for the open circuit
characteristic is presented in Fig.5. The open-circuit satura- 4.3. Three-phase Sudden Short-circuit Test
tion curve predicted from the magnetostatic simulation corre-
lates very well with the open-circuit saturation curve devel- A three-phase sudden short-circuit test is performed in order
oped from the generator laboratory tests. to determine the transient performances of the machine. This
 Field Voltage Field Current Terminal phase-to-neutral
Vf If peak voltage
66 V 0.53 A 0.92 p.u.

Table 2: Initial conditions for short-circuit test

(a) (b)

Fig. 8: Short-circuit test (a) flux distribution at first current

peak (b) flux distribution at second current peak

6. REFERENCES

[1] F. Bernot, “Alternateurs synchrones de grande puissance

(part I, II and III)”, Techniques de l’Ingénieur, Traité
Génie électrique.
[2] J. Pyrhonen and T. Jokinen, Design of Rotating Electri-
cal Machines, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2008.
Fig. 7: Short-circuit currents waveform [3] “IEEE Std-115 – Guide for Test Procedures for Syn-
chronous Machines - Part I and II”, 2009.
[4] A. Tessarolo and al., “Time-Stepping Finite-Element
test, conducted according to [3], consists of applying a three- Analysis of a 14 MVA Salient-Pole Shipboard Alterna-
phase short circuit at stator terminals while the machine is tor for Different Damper Winding Design Solutions”,
spinning at no-load and rated speed. Table2 gives the initial IEEE Trans. on Industrial Electronics, vol. PP, no. 99,
conditions before test. Short-circuit currents FE predictions May 2010.
and measurements results are reported in Fig.7. The FE simu-
lated waveforms of currents and experimental results are very [5] R. Wamkeue and al., “Line-to-Line Short-Circuit-Based
close. The small discrepancy observed is mainly due to shift Finite-Element Performance and Parameter Predictions
in time between numerical and experimental quantities. This of Large Hydro generators”, IEEE Trans. on Energy
is explained in [5] as a result of difficulty of matching the ini- Conversion, vol. 18, pp. 370 – 378, September 2003.
tial rotor angle used in the simulated test with that pre-existing
in the actual data records. Another factor of discrepancy is the [6] E. S. Hamdi, Design of Small Electrical Machines, John
fact that several machine parameters used for the FE simula- Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1996.
tions such as end-winding inductance and damper winding [7] D. Petrichenko, “Contribution à la modélisation et à
configuration are design data instead of measured or actual la conception optimale des turbo-alternateurs de faible
parameters. Fig.8 show flux distribution in the machine at the puissance”, Ph.D. thesis, Laboratoire L2EP, École Cen-
time of the first two peaks of current after the fault. trale de Lille, France, 2007.
[8] P. Lombard, “Couplage des équations électriques et
magnétiques”, Ph.D. thesis, Institut National Polytech-
nique de Grenoble, France, 1992.
5. CONCLUSION
[9] E. Vassent, “Contribution à la modélisation des mo-
teurs asynchrones par la méthode des éléments finis”,
Using commercially available software, the work built and Ph.D. thesis, Institut National Polytechnique de Greno-
successfully tested a complete FE-based framework for per- ble, France, 1990.
formances and characteristics prediction of a very small syn-
chronous machine. Comparisons of FE numerical and exper- [10] ANSYS, Inc., ANSYS Low-Frequency Electromagnetic
imental test results confirmed the great potential and useful- Analysis Guide, ANSYS R10.0, August 2005.
ness of the proposed methodology.