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An Experimental Evaluation of the Effect of Voltage Distortion on the

Performance of Induction Motors

E. B. Agamloh, Ph.D., P.E. Scott Peele, P.E. Joe Grappe, P.E.

Senior Member, IEEE Member, IEEE Member, IEEE
Advanced Energy Progress Energy Progress Energy
909 Capability Dr., Suite 2100 410 S. Wilmington Street 410 S. Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27606 Raleigh, NC 27602 Raleigh, NC 27602
USA USA USA

Abstract – A variable frequency drive operated motor standard efficiency and premium efficiency motors to
was used to inject harmonics onto a bus bar on which a determine if there are any peculiarities. Another aspect of the
smaller line connected test motor is operating. The effect work involves determining the effects of voltage distortion on
of voltage distortion on the operation of each test motor single-phase induction motors of different construction; such
is investigated by measuring their operating efficiency. as capacitor start induction run and double capacitor motors
The motors tested comprise integral horsepower three of different sizes.
phase motors of EPACT and NEMA Premium design as
well as single phase motors. It was verified that distortion II. QUANTIFYING HARMONICS
levels of about 8%THD have negligible effect on the
operation of both the integral and single phase motors.
One of the consequences of time harmonic content in the
power supply of induction motors is that harmonic voltages,
Index Terms – Induction motors, voltage distortion, THD.
currents, harmonic fields and torques are present alongside
the fundamental quantities. Table I shows the description of
I. INTRODUCTION the phase sequence of the harmonic orders. Some of the
harmonic voltages (such as harmonic orders 5, 11...) have
Induction motors are often subjected to voltage quality phase sequence opposite to the fundamental, thus creating
issues that are inherent in industrial power supplies. In fields that rotate in the opposite direction to the fundamental.
general, adverse voltage quality conditions detrimentally affect Those with the same phase sequence as the fundamental
the performance of induction motors. Of the various voltage (such as 7, 13,...) create fields that rotate in the same
quality conditions that a motor may be exposed to, the steady direction as the fundamental. Zero sequence harmonics are
state voltage unbalance and voltage distortion are considered also known as the triplen harmonics and they do not create
the most consequential. The focus of this paper is to address rotating fields in the motor as their components are all in
the effect of voltage distortion on the performance of induction phase and cancel out in a typical star connected three phase
motors. system.
Prior research on the performance of induction motors In literature, the total harmonic distortion (THD) and
under voltage distortion is available in literature [1]-[10]. Most harmonic voltage factor (HVF) are used to describe and
of the existing work covered both the analysis of additional quantify voltage distortion. The THD is defined as:
losses that are caused by supply voltage distortion and other
¦Vh 2
papers addressed temperature rise and derating of motors THD v u 100% , h = 2, 3… (1)
under distortion. It is important to note that the existing V12
papers are mostly based on analysis of the machine
equivalent circuit and thermal models. Machine equivalent
where V1 is the fundamental voltage and Vh is the harmonic
circuits and thermal models have well known limitations.
voltage. The HVF is also defined in as [3]
Other papers that are based on experiments typically have the
harmonic content injected by laboratory power supplies rather
n f (V ) 2
¦
than mimic arrangements that are found in real industrial n
environments. Furthermore, the effect of distortion on single HVF (2)
n 5 n
phase machines is hardly addressed in literature. TABLE I
The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effect of SEQUENCE OF HARMONIC ORDERS
voltage distortion on the operation of induction motors, with
Torque
particular focus on a practical setup that is often encountered Item Harmonic Order Sequence
Contribution
in industry. In particular, this situation depicts a line (sine
wave) powered motor operating on the same bus as a VFD 1 3n+1 (n=1, 2, 3,…) positive sequence positive
operated motor or other non-linear load. In this work, three 2 3n+2 (n=0, 1, 2, 3, …) negative sequence negative
phase motors of different designs were employed for testing. 3 3n (n=1, 2, 3, …) zero sequence none
The authors would also compare the effect of distortion on

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where n is the order of odd harmonic excluding the triplens, Vn

is the per unit magnitude of the harmonic voltage at the n-th
harmonic frequency. It has been demonstrated [4], [5] that
harmonics in the supply of induction motors that have
th th
negative sequence rotation such as 5 and 11 can produce
torques that rotate in the negative direction with respect to the
fundamental and thereby counteract the motor torque
produced by the fundamental. On the other hand harmonics
th th
with positive sequence rotation such as 7 and 13 produce
torques that are additive to the fundamental. The result of the
“boosting” and “bucking” of the fundamental torque is torque
pulsation that may affect starting and pull-up of the motor and
may generally be undesirable. A more undesirable effect is
the heating that is produced by the additional time harmonic
currents that flow through the motor.
Ref [3] suggests that line connected induction motors
operating at rated conditions with voltage distortion in the Fig 2: A test setup to investigate voltage distortion effects
supply be derated by multiplying their rated horsepower by a
factor according to Fig 1. From the graph, it is apparent that
motors operating with HVF less than 0.03 do not need de-
III. EXPERIMENTAL TEST SETUP
rating. Most of the available research papers on the subject
have addressed the thermal issues caused by harmonics [1],
[2], [4], [5] and have proposed various de-rating procedures A. Harmonics supplied by VFD
based on the thermal models. In the papers where such
models are validated with experimental support, such as in The main setup consisted of a 50hp motor connected to a
[5], [6] mostly arbitrary waveform generators are used and VFD and a line reactor. This motor served as the source of
limited number of tests were performed. injection of harmonics onto the bus of the test motor. The
loading on the 50hp injection motor was varied to change the
A test setup is described in Section III-A, which was used levels of harmonic content and voltage THD from under 2% to
to conduct an extensive experimental investigation in order to approximately 8%. Thus the injected harmonics would mimic
verify the effect on motors of voltage sources with reasonable a practical scenario in a plant, where a larger motor operating
harmonic content as found in many practical plants with non- with a VFD may be injecting harmonics onto a bus on which a
linear loads. This paper also includes an experimental line connected motor is operating. Fig 2 shows the primary
evaluation of the segregated losses in an induction motor test setup used for the tests.
operating with harmonic distortion. In this case, the motor
was directly connected to a programmable power supply with
TABLE II
an arbitrary waveform generator that was programmed with a
predefined harmonic spectrum. The details of this test setup HARMONIC VOLTAGES AT 460V
are provided in Section III-B. Harmonics Order Magnitude, V
Although thermal effects are not directly investigated in 1 458.7 458.8 458.0 457.3
this paper, their impact on the motors can be assessed 3 2.9 1.5 1.1 0.8
indirectly through the efficiency measurements. 5 5.3 14.9 25.6 28.2
7 2.6 8.6 9.1 10.2
1 9 0.7 1.2 0.3 0.5
0.9 11 3.5 9.3 14.8 15.9
0.8 13 3.3 6.5 10.8 12.0
15 0.2 0.8 0.6 0.4
Derating Factor

0.7
0.6 17 1.5 5.1 5.8 6.4
0.5 19 0.7 4.3 5.9 6.3
0.4
21 0.0 0.4 0.9 0.6
23 0.4 3.5 4.3 4.4
0.3
25 0.1 3.3 5.1 4.9
0.2
Total THD-v, % 1.8 4.9 7.5 8.2
0.1
50hp Injection
0 0 50 100 115
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
Motor Load, %

Harmonic voltage factor (HVF) Since the harmonic content of the supply was varied by
varying the load on the 50hp injection motor, the content
Fig 1: Motor derating factor curve according to [3] remained practically the same for each test motor with the

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setup in Fig 2. Table II shows a typical spectrum of the conditions described earlier. The results are presented in
voltage magnitude for specified harmonic orders of the Section V.
spectrum as provided by the source during the tests. The
targeted 5th harmonic had the highest magnitude but the 7th, 12
11th and 13th also have reasonable magnitudes. The
5th harmonic
reported THDs of Table II were achieved with the 50hp 10 7th harmonic
injection motor carrying the loads specified in the Table.

Voltage distortion factor, %

The tests were conducted as follows: each motor was 8
fully loaded at rated conditions until it was thermally stable.
Thermal stability is defined as a condition whereby the 6
0
temperature of the motor does not change by more than 1 C
within a 30 minute period. After thermal stability was 4
achieved the harmonic injection motor was loaded to specified
loads corresponding to approximately 2%, 5%, 7.5% and 8% 2
THD levels and the data points were taken and efficiency was
calculated using a simple input-output method. 0
The tests motors for this setup include two 5hp motors and 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
two 1hp motors, of which each rating is made up of one THD, %
premium efficiency design and an energy efficient design. The
energy efficient motor designs are regulated under the Energy Fig 3: Voltage distortion factor of predefined waveform
Policy and Conservation Act of 1992 - a federal law that
specified minimum efficiency performance standards for
electric motors. These motors are therefore often identified in
industry by the acronym EPACT. The premium efficiency IV. TEST RESULTS
level motors have higher efficiency than the EPACT motors
and are regulated under the Energy Independence and
A. EPACT and Premium Efficiency motors operating with
Security Act (EISA) of 2007.
voltage distortion
Three single phase motors were also tested using the
same setup in Fig 2. They include a 0.25hp permanent split Figs 4-5 show a plot of motor efficiency as a function of
capacitor motor, a 1hp capacitor start induction run motor and voltage THD for the 5hp premium and EPACT efficiency
1.5hp double capacitor motor. motors respectively. In both cases, it is evident that the
efficiencies remain fairly flat and that the voltage distortion
levels of up to 8% had a negligible impact on the efficiency.
B. Harmonics supplied by Programmable power supply As shown in the plots, the 8% THD point appears to be the
point where the efficiency begins to drop slightly. It appears
In addition to the setup described above we also report that for the level of distortion investigated, the harmonic
on another laboratory setup whereby the test motor was torques associated with the negative sequence rotation (5th
supplied with power from a programmable power supply with and 11th) appear to be insignificant compared to the
predefined harmonic content. That work was carried out while fundamental and their impact may have also been reduced by
the lead author was with Oregon State University. The power the 7th and 13th that are positive sequence. Therefore, the
supply is equipped with an arbitrary waveform generator that effect on efficiency and heating is minimal.
is capable of prescribing any waveform of any shape as
defined by the user through equations. The programmable
supply used for the work has previously been described in [7].
th
In the case of the programmable power supply, only the 5
th
and the 7 order harmonics were included in the spectrum.
th
Also the 5 harmonic amplitude was specified as twice that of
th
the 7 . In all the THD cases, the fundamental amplitude was
scaled at 0.95p.u. The percentage voltage distortion factor,
VDF, which is a measure of the contribution of each of the
harmonics orders to the distortion in the applied waveform is
th
defined by (3) and presented in Fig 3. As can be seen, the 5
harmonic VDF was up to a maximum of about 11% while that
th
of the 7 was about 5.5%.
Vn
VDF u 100 (3)
V1

The test motor in this case was a 10hp 4-pole motor. The
tests were conducted according to the IEEE 112B test Fig 4: 5hp Premium motor efficiency with THD
method. This method also included the thermal stability

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5hp - EPACT

85%

84%

83%
Efficiency

82%

81%

80%
0 2 4 6 8 10
THD-voltage, %

Fig 5: 5hp EPACT motor efficiency with THD Fig 7: Voltage and current waveforms of 1.5hp dual capacitor
motor

1hp Premium 1.5hp double capacitor motor

72%
85%

70%
84%

68%
83%
Efficiency

Efficiency

82% 66%

81% 64%

80% 62%
0 2 4 6 8 10
THD-voltage, %
60%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Fig 6: 1hp Premium motor efficiency with THD THD-voltage, %

Fig 6 shows a plot of motor efficiency as a function of Fig 8: 1.5hp 1-phase CSCR motor efficiency with THD
voltage THD for the 1hp premium efficiency motor. The tests
for the 1hp EPACT motor was discontinued as it was 0.25hp, 4-pole PSC motor

determined that it would follow the same trend as the other 75%
cases above. The comparison between EPACT and premium
70%
efficiency motors for the integral horsepower motors does not
show any noticeable difference between the performance of 65%
these motors with voltage distortion. Within the distortion
Efficiency

levels applied with the setup in Fig 2, the efficiency of the 60%
motors did not change and it is hereby also implied that
steady state thermal conditions of these motors would 55%
likewise be unchanged.
50%

B. Single phase motors operating with voltage distortion 45%

40%
Fig 7 shows the voltage and current waveforms during the 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
THD-voltage, %
testing of the 1.5hp single-phase double capacitor motor.
Although this supply is rich in harmonic content, it is evident Fig 9: 0.25hp PSC 1-phase motor efficiency with THD
from Fig 8 that the impact on efficiency is minimal. The same
applies to the other single phase motors, the results of which
are in Figs 9-10.

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1hp 4-pole CSIR motor

90
72%
89

70% 88

87
68%
Efficiency

86
negligible THD

Efficiency, %
85 3%THD
66%
84 5% THD
7% THD
64% 83 10% THD
12% THD
82
62%
81

80
60% 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Load, %
THD-voltage, %
Fig 11: Efficiency load profile of 10hp motor with %THD
Fig 10: 1hp CSIR 1-phase motor efficiency with THD

86.5%

V. TESTS WITH PROGRAMMABLE POWER SUPPLY

86.0%

85.5%
Efficiency

A. 10 hp motor operating with voltage distortion

85.0%
In the tests with programmable power supply, THD levels
up to 12% were injected into the power supply of the induction
motor. The motor losses were segregated using the IEEE 84.5%
112B. The efficiency of the motor as a function of the voltage
THD at various loads is presented in Fig 11. From this figure
84.0%
it is evident that THDs up to 7% cluster at the top with 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
practically minimal difference between the efficiency numbers, THD-voltage, %
while the THD levels of 10% and 12% are also clustered at Fig 12: Efficiency of 10hp motor with %THD
the bottom. There is a noticeable gap between the top and
bottom clusters. Fig 12 shows the full load efficiency as a
function of THD. In this plot, we see that the efficiency barely
changed within the range of 0 to 7% THD, but rapidly began 140
to change at 10% and 12%. This finding is totally consistent
with the tests with the setup in Fig 2. 120
The stray load loss (SLL) of the motor for various THD
levels is presented in Fig 13. It is worth to note that 100
noticeable differences occur only at higher loads. Also, while
Stray loss, W

the 10% and 12% THDs have higher SLL than the lower THD 80
3%
levels, there is no clear distinction for the lower THDs.
60 5%
Interestingly, the 7% THD has the lowest SLL. Although
7%
additional losses associated with the time harmonic currents
40 10%
may affect the value of the SLL, it is apparent that the trend
observed here may be due to the consideration of SLL as a 20
12%

residual loss rather than the effect of voltage distortion. There

is no evidence in the findings to conclusively suggest that up 0
to 8% THD, the value of the SLL is dependent on the 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

distortion. Torque, Nm

The conventional losses increased as the THD level

Fig 13: Stray loss of 10hp motor with %THD
increased although the increase was modest for the lower
THDs with gradual build up towards the 12% as shown in Fig
14. The friction and windage losses remained constant.

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1160
1150
1140
1130
Watts
1120
1110
1100
1090
1080
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
THDv%
Fig 14: Total conventional loss of 10hp motor with %THD
VI. DISCUSSION
From the foregoing results, it is clear that the impact on
efficiency is minimal for distortion levels up to 8%. Above this
point the effects become more noticeable. These findings are
applicable in both cases with either the harmonic content
injected by means of the practical setup in Fig 2 or by a
programmable power supply as described in Section IIIB. In
fact the findings are consistent with the NEMA derating curve
of Fig 1. The HVF of the experimental waveform injected by
the setup in Fig 2 for each THD level is presented in Fig 15. It
can be seen that the maximum HVF is less than 0.03, which
according to NEMA MG-1 [3] does not warrant derating.
The loss segregation showed that the conventional losses
increased as the THD level increased although the increase
was modest for the lower THDs with gradual build up towards
the 12%. These increases occurred as expected in the stator
rotor and core losses. The friction and windage losses
remained practically unchanged. The changes observed with
the SLL are not necessarily related to the effect of the
distortion. The trend may be due to the consideration of SLL
as a residual loss.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
A detailed experimental investigation was carried out to
evaluate the effect of voltage distortion on the operation of
three phase and single phase induction motors, using a
practical setup encountered in industrial settings. A variable
frequency drive operated motor was used to inject harmonics
onto a busbar on which a smaller line connected test motor
was operated. The test motors comprised integral
horsepower three phase motors of EPACT and NEMA
Premium design as well as single phase motors. The effect of
the voltage distortion on each test motor was investigated by
measuring the motor’s operating efficiency and the impact
was found to be negligible. In particular, it can be concluded
that, for distortion levels at or below 8% the efficiency of the
test motors is not reduced. This finding is applicable to
EPACT and Premium design as well as single phase motors.
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Also, the effect of harmonics was investigated using a
laboratory set-up where specific harmonics were included in
the spectrum to test one 10hp motor. A similar finding was
obtained. However, this motor was tested to THD level of
12% at which point reduction in efficiency became noticeable.
0.025
0.02
0.015
HVF
0.01
0.005
0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0
THDv, %
Fig 15: HVF of experimental spectrum vs %THD
The fact that similar findings was obtained between the
two setups at THD levels of less than 8% is indicative that the
use of controlled laboratory equipment such as arbitrary
waveform generators for harmonic injection, rather than actual
harmonics sources can produce reasonable results for such
experiments.
VIII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors would like to thank Kyle Smith, Tuan Nguyen, and
Matthew Davey for their diligence in conducting most of the
tests. Part of the work relating to the use of programmable
power supply was performed while the lead author was with
Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. The use of the
resources there is gratefully acknowledged.
IX. REFERENCES
[1] J.P.G de Abreu, A. E. Emanuel “Induction motor thermal
ageing caused by voltage distortion and imbalance: Loss
of useful life and its estimated cost,” IEEE Transactions
on Industry Applications, vol. 38, no.1, Jan/Feb 2002.
[2] P. G. Cummings, “Estimating effect of system harmonics
on losses and temperature rise of squirrel cage motors,”
IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. IA-22,
no.6, Nov/Dec 1986.
[3] National Electric Manufacturers Association, NEMA MG1
(Part 30), 2009.
[4] P. Gnacinski , “Prediction of windings temperature rise in
induction motors supplied with distorted voltage,” Energy
Conversion and Management, Elsevier, vol. 49, 2008
pp.707-717.
[5] C.Y. Lee, W-J, Lee, ”Effects of non-sinusoidal voltage on
the operational performance of a three phase induction
motor,” IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, vol
14, no. 2, 1999
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[6] A. Jalilian, V. J. Gosbel, B. J. Perera, “Performance of a
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[8] A. von Jouanne, B. Banerjee, “Assessmentof Voltage
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[9] Fernando J.T.E Ferreira et.al. “Impact of steady-state
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