Shaft voltage
Shaft voltage occurs in electric motors and generators due to leakage, induction, or capacitive coupling with the windings of the motor. It can occur in motors powered by variable-frequency drives, as often used in heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems. DC machines may have leakage current from the armature windings that energizes the shaft. Currents due to shaft voltage causes deterioration of motor bearings, but can be prevented with a grounding brush on the shaft, grounding of the motor frame, insulation of the bearing supports, or shielding.
Shaft voltage can be induced by non-symmetrical magnetic fields of the motor (or generator) itself. External sources of shaft voltage include other coupled machines, and electrostatic charging due to rubber belts rubbing on drive pulleys.<ref name=HEM04>Hamid A. Toliyat, G. B. Kliman Handbook of electric motors CRC Press, 2004 ISBN 0824741056, pp.672-688</ref>
Every rotor has some degree of capacitive coupling to the motor's electrical windings,<ref>"Turning The Tables On Shaft Voltage And Bearing Currents", David W. Schlegel, Russel J. Kerkman, and Gary L. Skibinski, Electrical Construction & Maintenance (EC&M) Magazine, June 1998, [1]</ref><ref>"How to Select a VFD", John Yoon (PE, LEED AP), Consulting-Specifying Engineer, November 2010, [2]</ref> but the effective inline capacitor acts as a high-pass filter, so the coupling is often weak at 50–60 Hz line frequency. But many Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) induce significant voltage onto the shaft of the driven motor, because of the kilohertz switching of the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), which produce the pulse-width modulation used to control the motor.<ref>Shaft grounding. A solution to motor bearing currents</ref> The presence of high frequency ground currents can cause sparks, arcing and electrical shocks and can damage bearings.<ref>"Control Engineering".</ref>
Counter-measures
Techniques used to minimise this problem include: insulation, alternate discharge paths, Faraday shield,<ref name="greenheck.com">Are Bearing Currents Causing Your Motor Failures? Greenheck</ref> insulated bearings, ceramic bearings, grounding brush <ref name="greenheck.com"/> and shaft grounding ring.
Faraday shield
An electrostatic shielded induction motor (ESIM) is one approach to the shaft-voltage problem, as the insulation reduces voltage levels below the dielectric breakdown. This effectively stops bearing degradation and offers one solution to accelerated bearing wear caused by fluting, induced by pulsewidth modulated (PWM) inverters.<ref>Busse, D.F.; Erdman, J.M.; Kerkman, R.J.; Schlegel, D.W.; Skibinski, G.L. (1997). "An evaluation of the electrostatic shielded induction motor: A solution for rotor shaft voltage buildup and bearing current". IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications. 33 (6): 1563–1570. doi:10.1109/28.649969.</ref>
Grounding brush
Grounding the shaft by installing a grounding brush device on either the non-drive end or drive end of a VFD electric motor provides an alternate low-impedance path from the motor shaft to the motor case. This method channels the current away from the bearings. It significantly reduces shaft voltage and therefore bearing current by not allowing voltage to build up on the rotor. Low maintenance grounding brushes have been field tested and proven to run for as long as 10 years at 1800rpm while maintaining the necessary target voltage that prevents electrical bearing damage for the entire life of the brush.<ref>"Shaft Grounding Systems" (PDF). Retrieved 30 March 2023.</ref>
Shaft grounding ring
A shaft grounding ring (SGR) is similar to a grounding brush, except that this brush makes use of conductive micro fibers, creating a low impedance path from the motor shaft to ground.
Insulated bearings
Insulated bearings eliminate the path to ground through the bearing for current to flow. However, installing insulated bearings does not eliminate the shaft voltage, which will still find the lowest impedance path to ground. This can potentially cause a problem if the path happens to be through the driven load or through some other component.
Shielded cable
High frequency grounding can be significantly improved by installing shielded cable with an extremely low impedance path between the VFD and the motor. One popular cable type is continuous corrugated aluminum sheath cable.
See also
References
External links
- "Technical guide No. 5 – Bearing currents in modern AC drive systems" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 20, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
- A Unique System for Reducing High Frequency Stray Noise and Transient Common Mode Ground Currents to Zero, While Enhancing Other Ground Issues Meeting Notices and Rule Changes from Electrical Manufacturing and Coil Winding
