What are Electric Drives?

Electric Drives:
•May be you have seen electric motors (EM)
but passed without noticing them
•May be you know exactly how many you
have at your premises
•Either way, electric motors play a very
important role in our every day business in
life
•They move and run basically everything we
need for business or pleasure
Motors in business Motors in pleasure
•In order to do their work, these motors work
on the parameters torque and speed, and
consume electric energy
•These consume electricity to provided torque
and speed needed for the work
•If the torque or speed is too high or low,
mechanical controls can be used to slow down
or speed up the process
•The result is in-efficiency
•In doing so, there may a lot of wastage in
energy
•The motor speed should match to what is
required by the process
•If not controlled, a lot of energy gets wasted
and that’s not good for any ones business
• fortunately there is a way in which the
control is possible without wastage of energy
and saving maintenance cost
•In technology, we call it Elecltric Drive.
•General dynamics of drive:
• coupling

motor load

•Motor torque and load torque oppose each other.

•The relation governing the operation is given by:

d ( Jm ) Jd (m ) d (J )
T  TL    m
dt dt dt
•Generally J is constant so, where J is moment of inertia, m is motor
speed
d (m )
T  TL  J
dt
So motor torque is :
d (m )
TJ  TL
dt
If speed is constant, then load torque and
motor torque are equal, i.e. T = TL
This state is called steady state
d (m )
dt
is called angular acceleration,
generally denoted by .
Speed torque convention:
•Multi-quadrant operation
• m
•
• forward braking forward motoring

• T

• Reverse motoring reverse braking

•
 pully

 T TL

Counter
weight

cage
•Hoist or lift is an example of forward motoring
•Full/loaded moves up
•The cage is loaded and its weigh is greater
than the counter weight
•This means load torque is CW
•Motor torque is ACW (always opposes load
torque)
•Hence motor torque and motor speed are in
the same direction, so the forward motoring
mode
•Hoist or lift is an example of forward braking
mode:
•Empty moves up
•The cage is unloaded and its weigh is smaller
than the counter weight
•Motor speed is still in ACW
•Load torque is now in also ACW
•Motor torque will be CW
•So speed and torque are in opposite direction
•Hence forward braking mode
•Hoist or lift is an example of reverse motoring
mode:
•Empty moves down
•The cage is unloaded and is being brought down,
i.e. being lowered
•Motor speed is now CW
•Load torque is now CW
•Motor torque will be CW
•So speed and torque are in both in negative
direction direction
•This is reverse motoring mode
•Hoist or lift is an example of reverse braking
mode:
•Loaded moves down
•Now consider the example of lowering the loaded
cage
•In this case  is in CW, i.e. negative
•Load torque is also negative , because lowering
•Motor torque is opposing load torque, i.e. ACW
•So  and torque are in opposite direction thereby
making power negative, this is reverse braking
mode
•If a drive is capable of driving in all the four
quadrant , it is called Four Quadrant Drive.
•Not all drives are four quadrant drives
What is DC Drive? Working and Types of
DC Drives
•DC drive technology is efficient, reliable, cost
effective, operator friendly and relatively easy
to implement.
•DC drive provides many advantages over AC
drives, especially for regenerative and high
power applications.
•DC drives have been widely used in industrial
drive applications in order to offer very precise
control.
Of course, variable frequency drives (VFDs)
and AC motors are now offering an
alternative to DC drives and motors, but there
are many other applications where DC drives
are extensively used including crane and
hoist, elevators, spindle drives, winders, paper
production machines, crushers, etc. due to the
advantages of DC drives.
 Components of a DC Drive?
The main components of a DC drive system
are shown in figure below.
DC Drive Input: Some thyristor based DC
drives operate on a single phase supply and
use four thyristors for full wave rectification.
For larger motors, three phase power supply is
needed because the waveforms are much
smoother. In such cases, six thyristors are
needed for full wave rectification.
Rectifier Bridge: The power component of a
controlled DC drive is a full wave bridge
rectifier which can be driven by three phase or
single phase supply. As mentioned above the
number of thyristor may vary depending on
the supply voltage.
A six-thyristor bridge (in case of three phase
converter) rectifies the incoming AC supply to
DC supply to the motor armature. The firing
angle control of these thyristors varies the
voltage to the motor.
Field Supply Unit: The power to be applied to the field
winding is much lower than the armature power, so, most
often single phase supply is provided. A separate thyristor
bridge or diode rectifier is used for supplying the power to
the field winding of the motor.
In many cases a two-phase supply is drawn from the three
phase input (that supplies power to the armature) and hence
the field exciter is included in the armature supply unit.
The function of the field supply unit is to provide a constant
voltage to the field winding to create a constant field or flux
in the motor. In some cases, this unit is supplied with
thyristors to reduce the voltage applied to the field so as to 
control the speed of the motor above the base speed.
In case of permanent magnet DC motors, the field supply unit
is not included in the drive.
Speed Regulation unit: It compares the operator instruction (desired
speed) with feedback signals and sends appropriate signals to the
firing circuit. In analog drives, this regulator unit consists of both
voltage and current regulators. The voltage regulator accepts the
speed error as input and produces the voltage output which is then
applied to the current regulator.
The current regulator then produces required firing current to the
firing circuit. If more speed is required, additional current is called
from the voltage regulator and hence thyristors conducts for more
periods. Generally, this regulation (both voltage and current) is
accomplished with proportional-integral-derivative controllers.
The field current regulator is also provided where speed greater than
the base speed is required.
In modern digital microprocessor based drives, the speed control is
achieved with a lookup table to determine the current for the firing
circuit with additional digital circuitry.
Firing Circuit: It supplies the gate pulses to
thyristors so that they turned ON for
particular periods to produce variable
armature voltage. Isolation is also provided in
this gate drive circuit.
Working Principle of DC Drives
In DC motors, the speed is proportional to the
armature voltage and inversely proportional to
the field current. And also, the armature
current is proportional to the motor torque.
Therefore, by increasing or reducing the
applied voltage, the speed of the motor is
varied. However, it is possible up to the rated
voltage. If the speed greater than the base
speed is required, the field current of the motor
has to be reduced.
By reducing the field current, the flux in the motor reduces. The
reduction of field current reduces the armature counter emf. The
more armature current flows if there is less counter armature
emf. Further, this armature current increases the motor torque
and hence the speed. These are the two basic principles
employed in DC drives to control the speed of the motor.
In armature controlled DC drives, drive unit provides a rated
current and torque at any speed between zero and the base of the
motor. By varying the armature voltage, variable speed is
obtained as shown in figure.
Generally, a fixed field supply is provided in these DC drives. As
the torque is constant (which describes a load type) over the
speed range, the motor output horsepower is proportional to the
speed (HP = T × N / 525). The motor characteristics of this drive
are shown below.
By reducing the field current, the flux in the
motor reduces. The reduction of field current
reduces the armature counter emf. The more
armature current flows if there is less counter
armature emf. Further, this armature current
increases the motor torque and hence the
speed. These are the two basic principles
employed in DC drives to control the speed of
the motor.
In armature controlled DC drives, drive unit
provides a rated current and torque at any speed
between zero and the base of the motor. By
varying the armature voltage, variable speed is
obtained as shown in figure.
Generally, a fixed field supply is provided in these
DC drives. As the torque is constant (which
describes a load type) over the speed range, the
motor output horsepower is proportional to the
speed (HP = T × N / 525). The motor
characteristics of this drive are shown below.
In case of armature and field controlled
drives, the armature voltage to the motor is
controlled for constant torque-variable HP
operation up to the base speed of the motor.
And for the above base speed operation,
drive switches to the field control for constant
HP- reduced torque operation up to
maximum speed as shown in figure below. In
this case, reducing the field current increases
the speed of the motor up to its maximum
speed as shown in figure.
Const torque const power
 Digital and Analog DC Drives
Nowadays, digital implementations have
replaced analog circuitry of electric drive
 system in all forms of industrial control.
Digital controllers offer greater flexibility to
produce the precise control, self-tuning, and
ease of interfacing with host computers and
other drives. However, a basic understanding
of analogue version DC drive makes less
difficult to understand its digital equivalent.
Let us look on both of these DC drives.
Analog DC Drives
A standard analog DC drive with speed and current control is shown in
figure below. The objective of this system is to provide speed control and
hence the speed reference becomes the input to the system and speed of
the motor is the output of the system which is measured by the
tachometer.
The working of this drive goes like this; consider that motor is running at
a set speed. Now, the speed reference signal has increased to somewhat
greater than the actual speed. So there will be an error speed signal at
left-hand summing junction as shown in figure. This speed error indicates
the required acceleration by the motor, which means the torque and hence
more current.
The error is amplified by the speed controller (which is basically a speed-
error amplifier) and its output is given as current input reference to the
inner control system. As the current reference increases, the inner current
controller drives the more current to the motor thereby extra torque is
provided.
The inner current loop is responsible for maintaining
the zero current error between the actual motor
current and current reference signal which means to
make actual motor current to follow the reference
current. The amplified current error signal from the
current controller controls the firing angle of the
bridge and hence the output voltage of the converter.
The current feedback is achieved either by DC
transformer or by AC transformer (with rectifier) in
the main supply lines.
This entire operation is performed by a
current error amplifier with a high gain. In
most cases, this amplifier is of proportional
plus integral control (PI) type circuit that
maintains the actual and desired currents
exactly equal under steady-state conditions.
This current controller also limits the current
through the motor by considering the
minimum and maximum currents of the
motor.
The outer loop provides the speed control by
comparing the actual speed obtained by the
DC tachogenerator with desired or required
speed from the speed reference. These two
inputs are fed into the speed-error amplifier,
and then resulted error is amplified and
applied as an input to the current controller.
The speed amplifier produces the current
output proportion to the speed error. For this
amplifier also a PI control is employed (by
using analog electronics) in order to achieve
zero steady state error. Using this, the actual
speed of the motor is maintained exactly at
reference speed for all loads.
Digital DC Drives
With the advancements in digital control, DC
drives become more flexible and faster (due
to faster response times) compared with
analog drives. A schematic arrangement of
digital DC drive is shown in below figure; of
course it is similar to the analog scheme, but
here analog circuit (analog amplifiers) is
replaced by digital circuitry.
A speed reference signal given as the drive’s
input compared with the feedback speed in
the summing circuit. If the output of the
summing circuit is positive error, indicating
that a speed increase is required and if it
generates a negative error, indicating that a
speed decrease is required (because motor is
operating at faster than desired speed).
The error speed is given to the speed
controller in the microprocessor which
determines output voltage to operate the
motor at desired speed. At the same time,
current controller in the microprocessor
determines the firing signals to the SCRs in
the bridge converter. SCRs then convert the
three phase supply to DC supply in relation to
the desired speed.
This drive can operate in open loop without
any feedback and can achieve a speed
regulation of 5-8%. However, a speed
regulation less than 5% is required in many
applications. In such cases, the speed
measuring/scaling unit switches to the EMF
feedback measuring circuit.
This feed back ckt measures armature voltage,
scales it proportional to output voltage (all
these are done by microcontroller or
processor) and the result is fed to summing
ckt. It appears as speed error signal into speed
controller
Also for field control (above rated speeds),
this drive includes a separate field exciter. A
field current regulator in the microprocessor
determines the voltage to the field windings
by accepting the flux/field reference signal
from the operator. This regulator provides the
firing signals required by the field converter
unit to produce the required DC voltage
proportional to the speed.
Power control switches:
Power control switches commonly used are
SCRs
A typical switch arrangement of a DC drive
system is shown in the Fig.
•AC Drives:
•AC drives may VSD (variable speed drive)
or VFD (variable frequency drive)
•The electrical energy goes to the drive
•The drive then sends regulated power to the
motor
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