Power Dense Variable Speed Drive/PM Motor Systems for Shipboard Fan Coil Assemblies

Rob Cuzner, Dan Drews DRS Power and Control Technologies Milwaukee, WI/USA Kyle Kennett DRS Marlo Coil High Ridge, MO/USA Ronaldo Lu, Calvin Corey, William Fahlstedt DRS PTI, Fitchburg, MA/USA

ABSTRACT The Variable Speed Drive (VSD) combined with a PM motor reduces energy demand of a shipboard Fan Coil Assemblies (FCA) by > 50%. Since there are over 5,000 FCAs in the U.S. fleet, significant energy savings is achievable, offsetting VSD equipment cost, reducing fuel consumption and providing increased automation and control. The benefits of VFD-based FCAs have not been realized with commercially available Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based VSDs because added filter components, power conditioning and environmental mitigation required for shipboard compatibility increase the size to six times the conventional motor controller based solution. This paper presents a 3.75 horsepower VSD/PM motor based FCA system having sufficient compactness to fit within the space allocated for the motor and fan in a typical FCA system of this size. A significant power density is achieved in the VSD by using Current Source Converter (CSC) based interface as the front end interface to the 440V distribution system. The CSCbased rectifier requires no inrush limiting circuitry, smaller EMI and differential mode filtering when compared to its VSC counterpart. The VSD feeds an efficient/compact PM motor/fan combination.

2.) The introduction of increased automation of shipboard processes in order to reduce the manning requirements of naval vessels. The electric power on a naval vessel is self-contained. A Ship Service Generator (SSG) converts available motive energy to fixed frequency power distributed to loads through a Ship Service Distribution System (SSDS). The typical SSDS is 60Hz, 3-phase, 450V RMS phase distributed to loads or transformers nominally rated for 440V RMS input voltage (taking into account voltage drops). Fig. 1 shows how a power converter converts fixed frequency and voltage three phase power from the SSDS to variable frequency, and voltage three phase power supplied to a motor. A significant improvement in efficiency is obtained for the process being controlled by the motor by shaping the input power with power conversion [2],[3]. Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) loads are the single largest classification of loads among shipboard loads, making up at least 27% of the total Ship Service loads [4]. A typical shipboard HVAC load is a Fan Coil Assembly (FCA) or chiller, which typically consists of an enclosure into which air is drawn through a filter and fin-tube heat exchanger cooled by chilled water. Cooled air is discharged by a centrifugal fan assembly into the surrounding air space. The centrifugal fan assembly on most shipboard applications consists of a fan, belt and pulley system driven by a motor that is connected to the SSDS through a motor controller. The motor controller is simplistically a switch that directs the SSDS fixed frequency power into an induction motor when operating in the steady state. During start-up the motor controller also provides an SCR-based soft start function in order to mitigate start-up inrush currents and basic shutdown and protective functions.

INTRODUCTION
The advent of the power electronic converters has made it possible to develop equipment that effectively and economically control the rate of power flow between an energy source and load and transform energy from one form to another [1]: The importance of power conversion technology to the ship building industry is two-fold: 1.) The saving of energy in order to reduce the fuel costs of naval vessels.

The notional efficiency of a fixed frequency motor controller-based FCA is calculated from the following expression: Efficiency= Fan Belt Motor Damper (1) where Fan, Belt and Motor are the fan, belt and motor efficiencies respectively. Damper represents the ratio of power converted to air flow to the power delivered at rated motor speed, assuming the fan motor operates at a constant speed. When the system operates with unimpeded air flow, Damper =1.0. As air flow is reduced by the throttling mechanism Damper will decrease by the cubic of the ratio of air flow to maximum air flow, assuming that air flow is proportional to motor shaft speed. For example, if the desired air flow is 50% of rated airflow, then Damper =0.53=0.125. Applying (1) and assuming Fan=0.8, Belt=0.96 and Motor=0.9, the efficiency of the motor controller-based FCA at 50% airflow is 8.6%. On the other hand, the efficiency of a VSD driven FCA is calculated as follows Efficiency= Fan VSD Motor (2) where VSD is the VSD efficiency. The efficiency of a shipboard compatible VSD will be somewhere between 88%-93%. The motor efficiency when fed by a VSD at 50% speed will drop but not significantly (i.e. from 90% at rated speed to 80% at 50% speed). Applying (2) with same assumptions for Fan and Motor the efficiency of the VSD-based FCA is between 57.6% (VSD=0.9) and 59.5% (VSD=0.93). In order to understand the impact to a shipboard application, consider a typical ship class with 50 FCAs installed operating with an average rated delivery of 2000 W. In the case of the VSD operating at 50% of rated air flow, the power is delivered to the motor at a cubic of the ratio of air flow to maximum air flow without the need for a throttling mechanism, so the required input volt-amperes (VA) and energy is significantly lower than that of a motor controller-based VSD, which dissipates the difference between its rated delivery power and the required delivery power for reduced flow with the throttling mechanism. Table I compares the energy usage and energy cost (assuming $0.44/kW-hr) of a 50 FCA ship-set operating at an average of 50% of rated air flow over a period of 8000 hours for motor controller and VSD-based options. This example demonstrates that a cost savings of at least $435.4K is obtainable over the operational period considered.

Fig. 1 VSD Interface Requirements

Significant efficiency and automation benefits could be obtained with an FCA that replaces the motor controller with a VSD. However, addition of a VSD should not increase the space claim of the FCA. Ideally, the footprint and/or space claim of a VSD should not exceed that of a motor controller. While Commercial-Off-theShelf (COTS) VSDs fit within the space envelope of a motor controller, they do not meet the interface requirements indicated in Fig. 1. Combining a COTS VSD with filter components, power conditioning and environmental mitigation required for shipboard compatibility increases its size to nearly eight times that of the motor controller. Also, the added parts also reduce the efficiency of the systemwhich detracts from the energy savings otherwise obtained. Therefore, VSD solutions that improve both power density and efficiency lead to viable shipboard applications. This paper presents a 3.75 horsepower VSD optimized for a PM motor based FCA system having sufficient compactness to fit within the space allocated for the motor and fan in a typical FCA system of this size. A significant power density is achieved in the VSD by using CSC based interface as the front end interface to the 440V distribution system. The CSC-based rectifier requires no inrush limiting circuitry, smaller EMI and differential mode filtering when compared to its VSC counterpart. The VSD feeds an efficient/compact PM motor/fan combination.

JUSTIFICATION OF VSD-BASED FCAS

In typical shipboard fixed frequency FCAs the air flow operates at design airflow regardless of need. Throttling air flow is difficult since operational conditions tend to approach stall, total ineffectiveness, when throttling airflow. In addition, throttling air flow does not reduce the power draw of the fan motor, so additional energy is dissipated to the throttling mechanism. A VSD-driven FCA, on the other hand will regulate the speed of the FCA fan motor in order to control air flow, reduce the power input to the motor in proportion the cubic or the ratio of rated flow to desired flow, and avoid stall within an operating range.

Table I: Comparison FCA implementation efficiencies and energy usage at 50% air flow
Implementation Motor Controller 90% Efficient VSD 93% Efficient VSD Efficiency 8.6% 57.6% 59.5% Energy Usage (kW-hr) 1.16106 0.17410 0.16810
6 6

Energy Cost $509.3K $76.4K $73.9K

Fig. 2 COTS VSD Fig. 4 COTS VSD Input Current Harmonic Distortion vs. Mil-Std-1399 Sec. 300B Limit

Fig. 3 COTS VSD Input Current vs. SSDS Voltage (10 COTS VSDs Installed) I.

SHIPBOARD COMPATIBLE VSDS

Fig. 2 shows the schematic for a typical COTS VSD, based upon a rectifier-fed Voltage Source Inverter (VSI). This topology has been the industry building block for commercial VSDs for the past thirty years. It is economically viable because it achieves both functions required for AC to AC power conversionAC to DC and DC to AC conversionwith the least amount of additional parts.

Some VSD vendors utilize SCRs for the rectification stage as shown in Fig. 7 in order to accomplish a soft start function minimizing high inrush currents that would otherwise occur when the power is connected with the DC link capacitors fully discharged. The Rectifier-Fed VSI is a buck topology, that is, it cannot produce a peak AC voltage that is higher than the peak of the input voltage. The VSI has enabled the motor drive industry to achieve the performance objectives of nearly any application because the VSI is perfectly suited to pulse-width modulation (PWM) techniques for synthesizing low frequency behaviorwhere the power transfer takes place. Although the PWM-controlled VSI seems like a panacea, the performance objectives of the application are not achieved without undesirable system impacts that were not fully understood until VSI-based motor drives installations reached a high penetration level [5] some twenty years after they were first introduced into the market. The VSI imposes pulsed voltages upon the system it is controlling, resulting in the following: Output current IHD and total harmonic distortion (THD) and its impact on motor heating, losses and acoustic noise High frequency common mode voltages which cause common mode current to flow through motor bearings resulting in pre-mature motor bearing failures

High frequency common mode and differential mode voltages and currents that cause conducted and radiated EMI High dV/dt which causes motor insulation breakdown, resulting in the need for inverter-grade motors that can survive the stresses applied by the VSD. In order to demonstrate the impact of the above effects on the shipboard environment a simulation was developed of the COTS VSD in Fig. 2 being fed by an SSDS having with realistic impedances corresponding to a 100kVA system. The simulation was developed in MATLAB-SIMULINK using the PLECS add-on to simulate circuit components. Fig. 3 shows the simulated input current for one phase to a COTS VSD vs. the simulated SSDS voltage of a system having 10 COTS VSDs, each having a rating of 3.75 Hp and all operating simultaneously at their rated load. Fig. 4 shows the IHD of a single 3.75 Hp COTS VSD input current and the IHD of the SSDS Voltage compared against their Mil-Std-1399 Sec. 300B limits. The conclusion may be drawn from these results that if additional VSDs are installed on a ship the SSDS IHD will continue to degrade until Mil-Std-1399 Sec. 300B limits are exceeded throughout the ship. This poor power quality will affect the performance of other equipment installed on the ship. Fig. 5 shows the simulated conducted emissions measured at the input to a COTS VSD compared against the Mil-Std-461F CE102 limits for various values of motor capacitance to ground. The measurement is the voltage measured at a Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN) with respect to ground. In the shipboard environment the equipment is required to be grounded to ships hull for safety purposes and all power is floating with respect to hull ground so that a the equipment can continue to operate if one line is shorted to ground. This characteristic of shipboard electrical systems presents a particular problem with respect to EMI. If the equipment generates a high level of voltage with respect to ground common mode currents flow through parasitic capacitance paths to hull ground and affect the performance of other equipment installed in the ship.

Fig. 5 COTS VSD Conducted Emissions (LISN Voltage) vs. Mil-Std-461F CE102 Limit

Fig. 6 10Hp shipboard qualified Cocooned COTS VSD

A shipboard compatible VSD must meet the requirements of Mil-PRF-32168. This specification for shipboard VSDs includes not only compatibility requirements and environmental requirements but also minimum efficiency and maximum space claim as a function of power rating [6]. A COTS VSD can be Cocooned in an enclosure that withstands shock, temperature and humidity typical of the ship environment. The enclosure also mitigates radiated electromagnetic emissions and includes the necessary filtering to meet input power quality requirements and mitigate conducted electromagnetic emissions. A Cocooned COTS VSD circuit is shown in Fig. 7. Actual hardware for a Cocooned COTS VSD product is shown in Fig. 6. The additional filter and control hardware contribute significantly to overall size and weight such that the COTS VSD itself represents less than 6% of the total volume and weight [7]. The characteristics of the COTS VSD and Cocooned COTS VSD are compared against the requirements of Mil-PRF-32168 in Table II. The Cocooned COTS VSD is compliant except in the areas of efficiency and power density.

Table II: Requirement compliance of COTS VSD vs. Cocooned COTS VSD

Fig. 7 Cocooned COTS VSD

Fig. 8 Shipboard Compatible VSR/VSI

Fig. 9 Shipboard Compatible CSR/VSI

TOPOLOGY CONSIDERATIONS
The results of Table II indicate that the only way that a shipboard compatible VSD can be developed that can be retro-fit into existing shipboard platforms is through a ground-up design that either attempts to either mitigate the undesirable byproducts of power conversion by design or to incorporate new circuit topologies that do not produce these byproducts. One option is to implement the VSR/VSI topology of Fig. 8 that uses the VSR to actively shape the input currents, eliminating low order harmonics. The combined size of the VSR and the required passive filter hardware (which only filters out high frequency switching ripple rather than low order harmonics) will be smaller than the passive filter approach of the Cocooned COTS VSD. The VSR/VSI is also a boost/buck converter, which boosts the input voltage to a DC link voltage that is higher than any peak line-to-line voltage with the VSR and then bucks the voltage down again with the VSI in order to control motor speed and voltage. The down-side to this approach is that the front-end VSR cannot limit inrush currents, so additional inrush limiting circuitry is required and the VSR and VSI both produce differential mode and common mode pulsed voltages, so the filtering required to mitigate conducted EMI is more significant than what would be required for the Cocooned COTS VSD of Fig. 7. A better option is to implement the CSR/VSI topology of Fig. 9. The front-end CSR is a buck converter which inherently limits inrush current by its switching devices and produces no common mode voltages at the switching frequency [8][9]. The down-side of this topology is that it is a buck/buck converter so the motor voltages will be significantly lower than the input. However, as will be shown later, this limitation is not a disadvantage with a PM Motor-VSD combination that fits with this topology.

POWER DENSITY AND EFFICIENCY COMPARISONS

A set of modular hardware was developed that can be packaged into a FCA enclosure. These hardware components include a VSC-based Inverter that can be configured as a VSR or VSI, a CSC-based Rectifier that can be configured as a CSR, the CSR DC link inductor (its main energy storage device), EMI filters and differential mode inductors used for input and output filtering. For comparison purposes the VSI feeds a low inductance PM motor (described later) so output inductance is required for torque control of the motor. The hardware was scaled in order to do a comparison among the different topologies for the same 3.75Hp rating and to take into account differences in filter sizes to meet the power quality and common mode EMI requirements based upon the voltage pulses, current pulses and common mode voltage produced by each topology. These filter designs were performed using empirical data from the actual hardware. The component volumes are compared in Fig. 10 for the three VSD topologies considered. These are actual measured volumes from hardware used to implement the FCA product. This result shows that the sum of the component volumes for the CSR/VSI topology is one third that of the Cocooned COTS VSD. Furthermore, Power density comparisons are made. This was done first by adding up the component volumes from the product shown in Fig. 6 and then dividing the summed up volumes by the outside volume, as described in (3), in order to obtain a fill factor of 0.2:
Fill Factor =

Component

Volumes

(3)

Outside Volume

It was then assumed that this same fill factor could be applied to a new design of a VSD using the modular components described above and whose volumes are

tallied in Fig. 10. The power density was then calculated for each topology as follows:
Power Density = Rated kW Fill Factor Component Volumes

(3)

Table III compares the power densities of the different VSD options with the motor controller. These results show that the CSR/VSI topology is the most power dense. The difference in power density between a motor controller and VSD has gone from nearly a factor of 8 to a factor of 2.5. Losses were calculated for each topology using devices modeled and simulated within a MATLAB-SIMULINKPLECS for all three types of VSDs. The component losses for each topology are tallied in Fig. 11. Assuming a motor efficiency of 95%, the losses and efficiencies are compared for the different topologies in Table IV. Understandably, the Cocooned COTS is the most efficient because it does not have an active front end converter. However, the CSR/VSI is slightly more efficient than the VSR/VSI. This is significant given the fact that power density and efficiency are generally competing objectives and the power density of the CSR/VSI is more than twice that of the VSR/VSI.

Fig. 10 VFD Component Volumes

Fig. 11 VFD Losses Table III: Comparison between power density of motor controller vs VSD options
Topology Power Density (kW/ft3) 6.6 0.82 1.26 2.68

FCA SYSTEM
What makes the VSD compelling for the FCA application is the fact the VSD enables the replacement of induction motors with Permanent Magnet (PM) motors. The total space claim of the VSD/PM motor can be reduced because the PM motor directly driven by the VSD when compared to fixed frequency motor controller-fed induction motors because of the space taken up by the fan, belt and pulley. Fig. 12 illustrates the typical orientation of the FCA motor and fan. On the other hand, a PM motor can be designed to have a flat pancake structure such that the motor diameter is the same diameter as the impeller fan. The PM motor/fan assembly orientation can then be changed to the configuration shown in Fig. 13. This approach leads to a better utilization of space, a more compact assembly. The result is that a VSD-based FCA takes up no more space than the conventional motor controller based FCA when the entire system is taken into consideration. So, although the VSD itself has not been reduced to the size of a motor controller with the CSR/VSI topology as shown in Table III, the motor/fan/VSD space claim in total is less than the conventional approach. Future power density improvements will reduce the overall space claim of the FCA over existing systems.
Shipboard Compatible Motor Controller Cocooned COTS VSR/VSI CSR/VSI

Table IV: Efficiency Comparisons

Cocooned COTS Losses (W) Output Power (W) Input Power (W) % Efficiency 294 2945 3239 90.9 VSR/VSI 353 2945 3298 89.3 CSR/VSI 330 2945 3275 89.9

A power dense PM motor solution is shown in Fig. 14. The PAAC motor has an axial flux and inside/out structure and therefore no stator back iron [4],[11]. Commercially available PAAC motors utilize printed circuit boards for the stator winding structure as shown in Fig. 15. The PAAC motor usually has a lower voltage rating because of trade-offs between voltage isolation capability with cost. Because of this lower voltage rating, the PAAC motor is well-suited to the buck/buck converter characteristics of the CSR/VSI.

shows the rectifier startup as the DC link voltage is ramped up from 0VDC to 380VDC. The top traces are the phase AB and BC input line to line voltages. The middle trace is the phase A input current. The bottom trace is the DC link voltage. Fig. 19 shows the conducted EMI test results measured at a LISN on phase A at the input to the VFD according to [12].

Fig. 12 Induction motor/belt/pulley/ fan assembly

Fig. 16 VSD Hardware

Fig. 13 PAAC motor/fan assembly

Fig. 17 PAAC motor and test fixture Fig. 14 PAAC motor structure

Fig. 18 Initial startup of CSR/VSI. Top: Input voltages (500V/div); Middle: Input current (10A/div); Bottom DC link voltage (200V/div); 40msec/div Fig. 15 PAAC stator I.

HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION

The hardware implementation of the 3.75Hp VSD and PAAC motor are shown in Fig. 16 and Fig. 17. The VSD dimensions are 22x16x6 and the motor dimensions are 11 diameter by 6 length. The verified power density of the VSD is 2.41kW/ft3, which is 4.8 times more power dense than the Mil-PRF-32168 specified power density of 0.5kW/ft3 in Table II. Fig. 18

Fig. 19 Mil-Std-461F CE102 test results of CSR/VSI Phase A input vs. Limit Line

CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a VSD topological configuration that combines a CSR with VSI driving a PAAC motor. The CSR/VSI is demonstrated to be more power dense and efficient in comparison to the cocooned COTS VSD and VSR/VSI topologies. Future work will continue to look at CSC-based VSD topologies which can be integrated into confined spaces, such as is required for shipboard FCAs within existing ship spaces. The PAAC motor combined with the CSR/VSI VSD is an attractive option for the FCA application because of efficient utilization of space.

[11] Judge, Andy, Permanent Magnet Axial Field Air

Core (PAAC) Motors for Naval Applications, ASNE Electric Machinery and Technology Symposium, April 2012 [12] Mil-Std-461E. DOD Interface Standard, Requirements for the Control of Electromagnetic Interference. 27 July 2004 Rob Cuzner, is a staff systems engineer at DRS PCT. He has more than 20 years of experience designing power conversion systems and controls. Prior to joining DRS, Mr. Cuzner worked for Miller Electric Mfg. Co. He is currently an Electrical Engineering PhD candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison Dan Drews, is an electrical engineer at DRS PCT. He is the lead systems engineer on the Advanced FCA (AFCA) program and is responsible for hardware and embedded software design, integration and testing. Mr. Drews has a BSEE from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Kyle Kennett, is a program chief systems engineer at DRS Marlo Coil. In this role he leads the future and legacy FCA and cooling coil assembly engineering efforts. Prior to joining DRS, Mr. Kennett was a nuclear engineer at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Ronald Lu, is the lead engineer for the PM motor component of the AFCA program at DRS PTI. He was a motor designer at Lucas Aerospace ElectroSystems Division, Sierracin/Magnedyne, and Ametek Rotron prior to joining DRS. Dr. Lu received his PhD from Illinois Institute of Technology. Calvin Corey, is responsible for the mechanical design, test, and manufacture of prototype and production motor assemblies at DRS PTI. Other responsibilities include the design of gas turbine, steam turbine and PM motor components. Prior to joining DRS Mr. Corey worked for Bose Corp. as a lean manufacturing engineer. He received his BSMET from Wentworth Institute of Technology. Will Fahlstedt, is currently the program manager for the AFCA program. He has more than 10 years engineering and program execution experience both within the Navy and for defense contracts for the U.S. Navy. Mr. Fahlstedt served 7 years active duty for the U.S. Navy. Nuclear as a submarine officer. He received his BSCS from University of Colorado-Boulder.

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