Chapter 4 Introduction to

Rotating Machines
Copyright © 2014
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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05/16/25 Introduction to Rotating Machines 1

 4.1 Elementary Concepts
• Rotating machines: voltages are induced in
windings or groups of coils by
– rotation of a magnetic field past a winding or
rotation of a winding through the field,
– or by designing the magnetic circuit so that the
reluctance varies with rotation of the rotor
• Since the flux linking a coil changes
cyclically, a time-varying voltage is induced
e = d/dt
• A group such coils carrying AC currents is
often called an armature winding
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 Armature of a dc motor. (Baldor
Electric/ABB)

In an AC synchronous
Stator of a 100-MVA three-phase
synchronous generator under
machine, the armature is
construction.(General Electric typically on the stator
Company.) In a DC machine, the armature
is located on the rotor

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• DC and synchronous machines typically have
field windings carrying DC to set up the main
operating flux, usually located on
– the stator for DC machines
– the rotor of AC synchronous machines
• Some machines, especially motors, use
magnets instead of field windings
• Induction machines do not have fields, but
produce flux similarly to transformers
• Many types of machines exist, but very
similar physical principles govern their
performance

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 4.2 Introduction to AC and DC
machines
• Traditional ac machines are classified as
synchronous or induction machines
– Synchronous machines: rotor currents are
supplied directly from the stationary frame,
through a rotating contact for example
– Induction machines: rotor currents are
induced in the rotor windings by magnetic
induction from the stator windings

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 • Armature here has a
single coil of N turns
• Field is excited through
brushes contacting slip
rings, or by brushless
excitation system
• If the air-gap flux is
sinusoidal in space,
Schematic view of a simple,two-
pole, single-phase synchronous the induced voltage in
generator the armature is
• Field has a single pair sinusoidal in time, as
of poles, so it is a the machine rotates at
two-pole machine constant speed
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Idealized flux distribution and waveform of generated voltage

• Many machines have

more than two poles. A
four-pole synchronous
machine, which will
rotate at half the speed
of a two-pole machine if
the frequency is the
same Four-pole single-phase
synchronous generator
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• For convenience in analyzing machines
with more than two poles, define electrical
angle and electrical speed, as follows:
 poles   poles 
e    m e   m
 2   2 
• Subscript e indicates electrical units while
m indicates mechanical or actual units
– This is useful since there are poles/2 complete
wavelengths or cycles in one (mechanical)
revolution
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 Induction Machines
• Stator windings are essentially the same as a
synchronous machine
• Rotor winding is electrically short-circuited
and often has no external connections,
deriving its excitation by magnetic induction
– Also called asynchronous machines
– Common construction for an induction motor
uses the squirrel-cage rotor with no external
connection
– Squirrel-cage induction motors are the most
common type of motor used today

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 • Rotor currents are induced
as the rotor slips past the
stator flux wave, which
rotates at synchronous
speed
• Flux wave set up by the
rotor currents rotates at
synchronous speed, and
Cutaway view of a 460-V, 7.5 hp interacts with the stator flux
squirrel-cage induction motor.
to produce torque
• Cage rotor has bars that • This machine is very similar
are shorted by end rings to a transformer, but with
rotation of windings
• Inexpensive to construct
and yet very rugged

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 DC Machines
• A simplified dc
generator armature
winding (a single coil of
N turns) is shown
– The commutator is a
cylindrical structure with
two segments attached
to the rotor, serving as a
mechanical rectifier to Elementary dc machine
convert the ac in the
armature coil to dc at the
stationary brushes
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 Air-gap flux
distribution and
voltage waveform

– DC in the field sets up a stationary flux

– The commutator causes armature flux to be fixed
in space between the field poles
– Interaction of fluxes sets up torque
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 4.3 MMF of Distributed Windings
• Practical armature windings are usually
distributed, or spread over a number of
slots
• Consider one phase of an ac three-phase
two-pole winding (called a full-pitch
winding since each coil spans  radians)
• Fourier analysis gives the space
fundamental component of the MMF,
developed in Appendix B
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 The mmf of one
phase of a distributed
two-pole, three-
phase winding with
full-pitch coils.

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• The peak value of the space fundamental is
given in the following equation, where kw is
the winding factor that accounts for the
distribution of the winding (see Appendix B
for details)

4  k wNph 
F 
ag1 peak    ia
  poles 

– The factor kw Nph is the effective number of

series turns per phase
– Typical values for kw are 0.85 to 0.90

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• Consider the dc machine with an armature
winding distributed over many slots
– An approximation to the mmf is a sawtooth wave

Cross section of a two-pole dc machine

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 Current and mmf
wave of idealized
dc machine

 Ca 
Fag1peak   ia
 2m poles 
Ca number of conductors
in armature winding
m number of parallel paths
through armature winding
ia armature current

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 4.4 Magnetic Fields in Rotating
Machinery
• Machine with a uniform air gap and a single full-
pitch N-turn coil on a highly permeable iron core

Diagram of machine

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 Space fundamental
field peak value:
4  Ni 
H 
ag1 peak   
  2g 

MMF and field distributions

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 4.5 Rotating MMF Waves
• Single-phase winding produces a pulsating
MMF that can be resolved into two equal
rotating waves, rotating in opposite directions
• Polyphase winding produces a rotating MMF
that has constant amplitude and constant
speed in steady state
• The figure on the next slide shows a
graphical explanation while the text gives a
mathematical derivation for the three-phase
case
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 The production of a rotating magnetic field by
means of three-phase currents

F is the resultant of vector addition of F a+Fb+Fc

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 4.6 Generated Voltage
• Flux density is nearly
sinuosoidal in space
• Phase-a flux linkage:
 a k wNph p cose t 
 p  flux per pole
• Generated voltage
(constant flux in normal
steady state):
ea  ek wNph sine t 
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 DC Machines
• Commutator acts as a rectifier, giving
average voltage:
2 poles
Ea  N pe  N pm
 
Ca active conductors
N 
2m 2 parallel paths
poles Ca
Ea   pm
2 m

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 4.7 Torque in Non-Salient-Pole
Machines
• Torque can be found from either a coupled-
circuit point of view, or from a magnetic-field
point of view
• Rotor current ir and stator current is with
angle between the magnetic axes
– Coupled circuit: T = (poles/2) Lsr is ir sin me
– Magnetic field: T  (poles/2) Fs Fr sin sr
Where sr is angle between stator and rotor
MMF’s
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 Summary
• The physical processes production of
torque and generated voltage in rotating
machines are quite similar, although the
details of machine construction and details
of analysis vary
– Torque is produced by interactions of the
magnetic fields of stator and rotor
– Voltages are generated by relative motion of a
magnetic field with respect to a winding

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