Evaluating Harmonic Distortions in Brushless Doubly-Fed Induction Machines

Tim Strous, Xuezhou Wang, Henk Polinder, Bram Ferreira

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The brushless Doubly-Fed Induction Machine (DFIM) is a special machine type that is of interest as a generator in wind turbine drive-trains. The brushless DFIM has a significant space-harmonic content compared to conventional machine types, due to its construction. This results in additional harmonic distortions, such as torque-ripple and time-harmonics. This paper studies the causes and origins of harmonic distortions in the brushless DFIM. Using time- and space-harmonic analysis an analytical evaluation method is derived to predict torque ripple frequencies and time-harmonic frequencies in stator and rotor voltages and currents. The evaluation method is applied to a prototype brushless DFIM to demonstrate the severity of harmonic related distortions that can be present in brushless DFIMs. The evaluation is validated by additional FE analysis and measurements. Furthermore, measures are proposed to reduce harmonic distortions. The insight into harmonic distortions in the brushless DFIM and the ability to predict and prevent them must lead to improved brushless DFIM designs in the future.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8100110
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Magnetics
Volume53
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • wind energy technology
  • Brushless doubly fed machine
  • DFIG
  • finite-element (FE) modeling
  • harmonic distortion
  • space harmonics
  • spectral analysis
  • time harmonics
  • torque ripple

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