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What is the purpose of an Alternator On

Ship?
Alternators provide Alternative Current on ship. There are
numerous ways of generating Alternating current on board but
the basis arrangement of the alternator remains the same. This
article explains the construction of an alternator and also the
principle and working that drives it.
Working Principle of Alternators
Do you know how do alternators work? Before going into the
details of the user of alternators on board ships, let us understand
some basic working principles of the same. When a coil of wire
is rotated in a magnetic field an electric current is generated.
This current is called as alternating current as its direction and
value keeps on fluctuating. The current can be collected from
the coil with the help of slip rings which are fitted with carbon
brushes.
The same principle is used on board to generate electricity. The
alternator can be attached to an auxiliary engine or can even be
attached to the main engine or the propeller shaft.

Construction
The main parts of an alternator are - a stator and a rotor. The
arrangement can be of two types. One in which either the rotor
is stationary and the stator is moving or one with rotor moving
and the stator is stationary. We will consider an arrangement in
which the rotor is moving.
As shown in the figure, the rotor is located in between the stator.
The alternator is connected to an auxiliary engine. The rotor
shaft is attached with slip rings and fan. The rotor houses the
poles. The shaft fan drives the air over a heat exchanger which is
water cooled. This air is used to remove the heat generated in
the windings. The stator surrounds the rotor and is attached to
the three phase windings. In case, the alternator is connected to
main engine or propeller shaft, then there will be too much
variations in the speed. Thus in order to provide a constant
speed, a gear box arrangement is provided.

Working
The arrangement can be of two or more than two
electromagnets. More the number of poles, more the current
produced. The electromagnets are so arranged
that the adjacent poles have opposite polarity. These poles are
connected with an output arrangement to derive the current.
Generally the coils are connected with minimum three outputs
which are arranged with a phase separation of 120 degrees to
produce a three-phase supply. The supplies are connected either
in star or delta connection. Star connection which is generally
used requires four slip rings.
For heavy duty alternators the arrangement of stationary rotor
and rotating stator is used. The field current is supplied with the
help of low voltage DC generator also known as an exciter. All
the mordern alternators are high speed brushless types and don't
require an external exciter.
Correcting Output voltage

The voltage generated is not steady and its often


difficult to control the excitation. For this purpose, Automatic
Voltage Regulator (AVR) is used. AVR detects the variation in
the output voltage of the alternator and sends a signal to an
amplifier. The later corrects the excitation to provide a steady
voltage. The static excited alternators uses a static excitation
which can accept sudden loading with the help of squirrel cage
motors. It also uses transformers and rectifiers and transfers
current to the field coil with the help of brushes and slip rings.
The brushless high speed alternators also doesn't use any DC
exciters. The alternator rotor carries a rectifier which transfers
the voltage through the shaft into the alternator field coils.
The adjacent diagram shows a marine alternator which is
marked by the red coloured circle and an arrow pointing towards
it. Of course the entire system is the complete generation set
consisting of the generator and only the marked part is the
alternator.

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