UNBALANCED MAGNETIC PULL IN CAGE INDUCTION MOTORS WITH ASYMMETRY
IN ROTOR STRUCTURES
A Arkkio
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Abstract. Rotor-cage faults, eccentric rotors or
unsuitable numbers of rotor slots cause unbalanced
magnetic pull in induction motors. The calculation of
the forces is based on time-stepping, finite-element
analysis of the magnetic field. The field is assumed to
be two-dimensional, and the forces are calculated from
the air-gap field using a method based on the principle
of virtual work. The simulations done on a 30 kW two-
pole motor and a 15 kW four-pole motor show that each
of the three types of asymmetry can produce forces
larger than the weights of the rotors.
INTRODUCTION
The paper deals with standard cage induction motors
but the impetus for this work was given by development
of high-speed electric machines. In these motors, we use
active magnetic bearings, and when designing the
control of the bearings one should know the forces the
bearings must transmit. Besides bearing problems, an
unbalanced magnetic pull generates harmful vibration
and noise. The aim of the paper is to study and compare
the forces caused by the most common asymmetries
encountered in cage induction motors.
An asymmetry in the construction of a motor leads to a
distorted flux distribution which generates the
unbalanced magnetic pull. The non-ideal field may
induce circulating currents in the rotor cage and parallel
paths of the stator winding. These currents tend to
equalise the flux distribution and, by doing this, they
may significantly reduce the radial forces. It is difficult
to calculate these currents by analytical tools. Saturation
of the core together with stator and rotor slottings make
the problem more difficult.
Eccentricity is the source of unbalanced magnetic pull
most often studied in literature. Freise and Jordan (1)
derived analytical equations for calculating these forces.
They used damping factors to take into account the
reduction in the force caused by the equalising currents.
Dorrell ( 2 ) studied MMF harmonics to explain the
variation of the unbalanced pull with the loading of the
motor. Belmans et a1 (3) studied the effects of the
unipolar flux that may be caused by an eccentric rotor,
especially, in a two-pole machine. DeBortoli et a1 (4)
used a time-stepping, finite-element method for
studying equalising currents set up by an eccentric rotor
in the parallel circuits of stator windings.
36 EMD97 1-3 September 1997
Methods for detecting rotor-cage faults have also
received much attention but the research mainly focuses
on detecting the faults by monitoring stator currents.
The forces caused by broken rotor bars or end-rings
were studied by Williamson and Abdel-Magied (5).
They derived analytical equations for these forces.
Moller (6) studied experimentally how the number of
rotor slots affects the characteristics of cage induction
motors. Odd numbers of slots produced very noisy
motors. Arkkio (7) studied these numbers of slots using
a numerical method of analysis.
METHOD OF ANALYSIS
The magnetic field in the core region of the motor is
assumed to be two-dimensional, and the field equation
is discretized by the finite-element method. End-region
fields are taken into account approximately by end-
winding impedances in the circuit equations of the
windings. The field and circuit equations are solved
together as a system of equations. The time-dependence
of the field is modelled by the Crank-Nicholson method.
The rotor is rotated during the simulation by changing
the finite-element mesh in the air gap. The details of the
method have been presented by Arkkio (8).
The method based on the principle of virtual work
presented by Coulomb (9) is used for computing the
forces. The force is obtained as a volume integral
computed in a cylindrical air layer surrounding the
rotor. In the two-dimensional case, this becomes a
surface integration over the air-gap finite elements. The
method was chosen as it and other methods based on a
similar integration have given good results when
computing the torques of electric motors (8), (10).
A cage fault is modelled by changing the cage
resistances in the circuit equations. If a broken rotor bar
is simulated, one of the resistances connecting the bars
to the end-ring is given a value 10 000 times larger than
the d.c. resistance of a healthy bar. In the case of a
broken end-ring, this resistance value is given to an end-
ring segment connecting two bars.
The magnetic field is assumed to be two-dimensional.
This means that skewing of rotor slots or a unipolar flux
that may be generated by the asymmetry is not
modelled. The laminated iron core is treated as a non-
conducting, magnetically non-linear medium, and the
Conference Publication No. 444 0 IEE 1997
magnetisation curve is single valued. Thus, the core
losses are neglected when solving the magnetic field.
The method of analysis models the effects of equalising
currents, slotting and saturation. In a previous paper
( 1 l), the method was verified by comparing the forces
measured and computed for a high-speed induction
motor. In this case, the source of asymmetry was static
eccentricity.
All the results of this paper have been computed using
isoparametric, second-order finite elements. A typical
finite-element mesh contains about 10 OOO nodes.
The amplitudes of the higher harmonics increase with
the load of the machine, and at the peak torque of the
motor the harmonics almost completely mask the
fundamental component. The presentation of such
forces is difficult as there is no room for many trace
plots. Normally, the motor operates between the no-load
point and the rated point. In this region, the fundamental
component of the force is dominant. The instant of time
at which this component has its maximum was searched
for by time-stepping simulations, and the forces
presented are the average values integrated over one
period of line frequency around this time instant.

RESULTS Figure 2 shows the forces in the two motors as functions

of the load. In this case, the motors have windings with
The parameters of the two motors are given in Table 1 . series connection. In order to compare the forces of the
The main difference between them is the pole number. two motors, the powers are relative values scaled by the
.Another difference which proved to affect the forces is rated powers. The same forces when the equalising
the shape of rotor slots. The two-pole motor has closed currents are allowed to flow in the parallel circuits of
and the four-pole motor semi-open rotor slots. the stator winding are shown in Figure 3. The forces are
reduced considerably. The parallel connection in the
s of the c d u c t i o n motow four-pole motor seems to be more efficient in reducing
the forces. As reference, the weights of the rotors of the
two-pole four-pole two-pole and four-pole motors are 550 N and 300 N,
motor motor respectively.
36 36
Number of rotor slots 28 34 The effect of saturation of the iron core is shown in
Stator diameter (mm) 323 235 Figure 4. The supply voltage has been changed while
~Rotor diameter (mm) 190 145 keeping the slip constant (rated slip). In a linearised
Core length (mm) 183 195 motor, the force would be proportional to the square of
Air gap (mm) 0.80 0.45 the supply voltage. The saturation of the core tends to
Connection delta delta symmetrise the flux distribution disturbed by the rotor
Rated voltage (V) 400 3 80 fault, and the forces start to decrease at high levels of
Rated frequency (Hz) 50 50 saturation. The maximum forces occur at approximately
Rated current (A) 53 30 the rated voltages at which the fundamental components
1Rated power (kW) 30 15 of the air-gap flux densities are 0.66 T and 0.92 T for
the two- and four-pole motors.
In order to study the effects of circulating currents, each
of the motors is simulated with two types of stator
winding: a winding with the coils connected in series
and another one having two parallel branches. In the
four-pole motor, the parallel paths are obtained by
connecting the windings on the two pole pairs in
parallel. In the two-pole motor, the poles are connected
in parallel. The numbers of turns in the two windings
are chosen to produce equal air gap fluxes at equal
supply voltages.

Broken rotor bar

Figure 1 shows the trace of the force vector caused by a

broken rotor bar. The simulation is done for the four-
pole motor running at the rated power, and it covers
four periods of line frequency. The force vector rotates
with the rotor. There are higher harmonics in the force
obviously generated by the stator slotting. The
magnitude of the "fundamental component" also seems
-
-1.5
-1.5 -1 -6.5 6 0.5
Force, x-component [kN]
1 1.5

to change with time. According to the equations derived Figure 1: Trace of the magnetic pull vector computed
by Williamson and Abdel-Magied ( 5 ) the magnitude of for the four-pole motor loaded by the rated torque. The
the force varies at twice the slip frequency. force is presented in the stator frame of reference.

37
 1200
Figure 5 shows how the magnitude of the unbalance
F [NI magnetic pull changes when two adjacent bars are
1000 broken instead of one. Two broken bars produce almost
twice the force of one broken bar.
800
2500
600 F [NI
2000
400

200 1500

1000
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 PIPn 2.0

Figure 2: The unbalanced magnetic pull caused by a 500

broken rotor bar in the two-pole and four-pole motors.
The forces are shown as functions of the relative shaft
power. The stator windings have no parallel paths. 0
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 p p n 2.0

Figure 5: The force caused in the four-pole motor by

two adjacent broken bars compared with the case of one
broken bar.

Broken end-ring

Figure 6 presents the forces generated by a broken end-

ring. A comparison with the forces in Figure 2 shows
that in the two-pole motor a broken end-ring produces
about four times larger forces than a broken rotor bar. In
the four-pole motor this ratio is about three. The
reduction of these forces caused by equalising currents
flowing in the parallel stator circuits can be seen by
comparing Figures 6 and 7. Again, the parallel
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 pipn 2.0 connection of the four-pole motor seems to be more
efficient in reducing the forces than the parallel
Figure 3: The forces caused by a broken rotor bar in the connection of the two-pole motor.
two-pole and four-pole motors when the motors have
two parallel paths in the stator winding. 3500
.F [NI
1000 3000
F [NI
2500
800
2000
600
1500

400 1000

500
200
0
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 PIPn 2.0
0
0 100 200 300 Figure 6: The unbalanced magnetic pull caused by a
“OU [V?OO broken end-ring. The forces computed for the two-pole
Figure 4: Effect of saturation on the unbalanced and four-pole motors are shown as functions of the
magnetic pull caused by a broken rotor bar. relative shaft power. No parallel paths.

38
 1750 1400
F [NI
1500 1200

1250

lo00 800

750 600

500 400

250 200

0 0
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 P/Pn 2.0 0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 p/Pn 2.0

Figure 7: The forces caused by a broken end-ring in the
two-pole and four-pole motors when the motors have
two parallel paths in the stator winding.
Eccentricity
Figure 8 shows the trace of the force vector caused by a
rotor with 20% dynamic eccentricity. The simulation
was done for the two-pole motor at no load. The force
vector rotates at the angular velocity of the rotor. Figure
9 shows the magnitudes of the forces computed for the
two motors as functions of the relative shaft power. The
stator windings are series connected. The loading first
reduces the forces but at loads well over the rated power
the forces start to increase. The increase is caused by
the higher harmonics in the air-gap field (2).
Figure 9: The magnitude of the unbalanced magnetic
pull caused by 20% dynamic eccentricity.
of the force is associated with the closed rotor slots. In
the case of static eccentricity, the asymmetric flux
induces circulating currents in the rotor cage. At small
loads, however, the iron bridges of the closed slots are
non-saturated, and they provide a path for the
asymmetric flux along which it can flow generating the
force but without generating the equalising currents.
When the load is increased, the iron bridges become
fully saturated, and the path for the asymmetric flux is
closed. The forces of both the motors increase steadily
with the load. These effects have been studied in more
detail by Arkkio (12).

Figure 10 shows the unbalanced pull when the rotors

are assembled with 20% static eccentricity. In this case,
the force in the four-pole motor increases steadily with
the load but the force of the two-pole motor decreases
significantly at the beginning of loading. The reduction

1000

750

n 500
z
4
4-
C
0) 250
‘g 0
E o 0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 p/Pn 2.0
8I
s
Figure 10: The magnitude of the unbalanced magnetic
i? pull caused by 20% static eccentricity.
-500
Number of rotor slots
-750
When a two- or four-pole motor has an even number of
-1000 rotor slots, the large local forces between stator and
-1000-750 -500 -250 0 250 500 750 loo0
rotor teeth cancel each other on the opposite sides of the
Force, x-component [NI
rotor, and the total force is zero. If the number of slots is
Figure 8: The trace of the magnetic pull vector an odd number, a net force may occur. Figure 11 shows
computed for the two-pole motor at no load. The the trace of the force vector generated in the four-pole
dynamic eccentricity is 20% of the mean air gap.

39
 CONCLUSIONS

The forces caused by rotor-cage faults, eccentric rotors

or unsuitable numbers of rotor slots have been studied
using time-stepping, finite-element techniques. The
method of analysis is versatile modelling the effects of
eddy-currents, slotting and saturation. The simulations
done for the two-pole and four-pole motors show that all
the asymmetries studied can produce forces larger than
the weights of the rotors. The largest forces were
produced by broken end-rings. The saturation of the
core and equalising currents in the parallel circuits of
stator winding reduce the unbalanced magnetic pull.

REFERENCES
1. Freise W. and Jordan H., 1962, "Einseitine
-800 j I I I I I I I magnetische Zugkrafte in Drehstrommaschinen",
-800-600 -400 -200 0 200 ' 400 600 800 A, B,9,299-303.
Force, x-component [NI
2. Dorrel D.G., 1995, "The sources and characteristics
Figure 11: The trace of the magnetic pull vector when of unbalanced magnetic pull in cage induction motors
the four-pole motor is equipped with a rotor having 33 with either static or dynamic rotor eccentricity".
slots. The motor is loaded by the rated torque. Proceedings of Stockholm Power Tech, Stockholm,
Sweden. Vol. Electrical Machines and Drives, 229-234.
motor by a rotor with 33 slots. The simulation is for the 3. Belmans R. et al, 1987, "Calculation of the flux
motor loaded by the rated torque. The force vector density and the unbalanced pull in two pole induction
rotates at a high frequency (900 Hz) and has a relatively machines", Archiv fur Elektrotechnik, 70, 151-161.
large amplitude. In the two-pole motor, a rotor with 33 4. DeBortoli M.J. et al, 1993, "Effects of rotor
slots produces a very similar force; only the frequency eccentricity and parallel windings on induction machine
is higher (1850 Hz). It is obvious that this kind of forces behavior: A study using finite element analysis", IEEE
cause noise and vibration problems. Trans., MAG-29,2, 1676-1682.
5. Williamson S. and Abdel-Magied M.A.S., 1985,
Figure 12 shows how the magnitudes of the forces "Unbalanced magnetic pull in induction motors with
caused by the 33 rotor slots change with the loading. In asymmetrical rotor cages", Proceedings of the Second
the two-pole motor at no load, the closed slots manage International Conference on Electrical Machines -
Design and Applications, London, 218-222.
to mask the rotor slotting, and the force remains small.
When the loading saturates the iron bridges, the slotting 6. Moller H., 1930, "Uber die Drehmomente beim
becomes "visible" for the stator, and the force starts to Anlauf von Drehstrommotoren mit Kafigankern",
rise. The effects of odd numbers of rotor slots have been
Archiv fur Elektrotechnik, a 401-424.
studied in more detail in Ref. (7). 7. Arkkio A., 1995, "Unbalanced magnetic pull in a
four-pole induction motor with an odd number of rotor
slots", CICEM, Hangzhou, China, 343-348.
1750
F [NI 8. Arkkio A., 1987, "Analysis of induction motors
based on the numerical solution of the magnetic field
1500 and circuit equations", Helsinki, Acta Polvtechnica
Scandinavica. Electrical Engineering Series, 3.
97 p.
1250
9. Coulomb J.L., 1983, "A methodology for the
determination of global electromechanical quantities
1000 from a finite element analysis and its application to the
evaluation of magnetic forces, torques and stiffness".
750 IEEE Trans., MAG-l9,6,2514-2519.
10. Sadowski N. et al, 1992, "Finite element torque
500 calculation in electrical machines while considering the
movement". IEEE Trans., MAG-28,2, 1410-1413.
250
11. Arkkio A. and Lindgren O., 1994, "Unbalanced
0
magnetic pull in a high-speed induction motor with an
eccentric rotor", ICEM, Paris, 1,53-58.
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 pipn 2.0
12. Arkkio A., 1996, "Unbalanced magnetic pull in cage
Figure 12: The unbalanced magnetic pull in the two induction motors - Dynamic and static eccentricity".
motors caused by an odd number (33) of rotor slots. ICEM, Vigo, Spain, 1,192-197.

40