Unit 3 : Special Purpose Motors

Construction, working principle, characteristic and applications of:

stepper motors,
A.C. and D.C servomotors,
Universal Motors, Industrial applications,
Brushless DC motors,
Linear induction motors,
Single phase induction motors,(types, construction, working principle
of split phase and shaded pole type induction motors),
Descriptive treatment for AC series motor (difference between AC
series and DC series motor, construction and working).
 Stepper Motor

• A stepper motor or step motor or stepping motor is a brushless DC

electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal
steps.

•Stepper Motor is a brushless electromechanical device which converts

the train of electric pulses applied at their excitation windings into
precisely defined step-by-step mechanical shaft rotation. The shaft of
the motor rotates through a fixed angle for each discrete pulse. This
rotation can be linear or angular.It gets one step movement for a single
pulse input.
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 Why Stepper Motors

•The invention of dedicated stepper motor driver cards and other digital control
technologies for interfacing a stepper motor to PC-based systems are the reason for
the widespread acceptance of stepper motors in recent times.

•Stepper motors become the ideal choice for automation systems that require precise
speed control or precise positioning or both.

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 Construction of Stepper Motor:

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 Working Principal
•When a train of pulses is applied, it gets turned through a certain angle.
The angle through which the stepper motor shaft turns for each pulse is
referred as the step angle, which is generally expressed in degrees.
•The number of input pulses given to the motor decides the step angle and
hence the position of motor shaft is controlled by controlling the number
of pulses. This unique feature makes the stepper motor to be well suitable
for open-loop control system wherein the precise position of the shaft is
maintained with exact number of pulses without using a feedback sensor.
•If the step angle is smaller, the greater will be the number of steps per revolutions
and higher will be the accuracy of the position obtained. The step angles can be as
large as 90 degrees and as small as 0.72 degrees, however, the commonly used step
angles are 1.8 degrees, 2.5 degrees, 7.5 degrees and 15 degrees.
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 Working Principal of Stepper Motor

•The direction of the shaft rotation depends on the sequence of

pulses applied to the stator. The speed of the shaft or the
average motor speed is directly proportional to the frequency
(the rate of input pulses) of input pulses being applied at
excitation windings.

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 Working Principal of Stepper Motor

•The stepper motor works on the principle that the rotor aligns in a particular position with
the teeth of the excitation pole in a magnetic circuit wherein minimum reluctance path exist.
Whenever power is applied to the motor and by exciting a particular winding, it produces
its magnetic field and develops its own magnetic poles.

•Due to the residual magnetism in the rotor magnet poles, it will cause the rotor to move in
such a position so as to achieve minimum reluctance position and hence one set of poles of
rotor aligns with the energized set of poles of the stator. At this position, the axis of the stator
magnetic field matches with the axis passing through any two magnetic poles of the rotor.

•When the rotor aligns with stator poles, it has enough magnetic force to hold the shaft from
moving to the next position, either in clockwise or counter clockwise direction.
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 Types of Stepper Motor
There are several types of stepper motors are available in today’s market
over a wide range of sizes, step count, constructions, wiring, gearing,
and other electrical characteristics. As these motors are capable to
operate in discrete nature, these are well suitable to interface with
digital control devices like computers.

There are three main types of stepper motors.

• Permanent magnet stepper
• Hybrid synchronous stepper
• Variable reluctance stepper
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 Types of Stepper Motor
1. Permanent magnet type stepper motor: This type of stepper motor has wound stator poles. It
has permanently magnetized rotor which is constructed in cylindrical shape. In this type, the
direction of the rotor depends on the polarity of stator current.

2. Variable reluctance stepper motor: It also has the wound stator same as that of permanent
magnet type, but the rotor is non-magnetic. The rotor is made up of ferromagnetic material,
like iron. When the stator pole is magnetised, the rotor teeth will align with the magnetised
stator pole. This type of motor works on the principle of the minimizing the reluctance path of
the magnetic field.

3. Hybrid stepper motor: It combines features of both permanent magnet type as well as variable
reluctance type motor. The rotor is of permanent magnet type and axially magnetised with
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radial soft iron teeth.
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Torque - Pulse rate Characteristics of Stepper Motor

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 Torque - Pulse rate Characteristics of Stepper Motor

The Torque pulse rate Characteristics of a Stepper Motor gives the variation of an
electromagnetic torque as a function of stepping rate in pulse per second (PPS).

There are two characteristic curves 1 and 2 shown in the figure below.

Curve one is denoted by a blue colour line is known as the Pull-in torque.

It shows the maximum stepping rate for the various values of the load torque at which the
motor can start, synchronise, stop or reverse.

Similarly, the curve 2 represented by Red colour line is known as pullout torque
characteristics. It shows the maximum stepping rate of the motor where it can run for the
various values of load torque. But it cannot start, stop or reverse at this rate.
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 Torque - Pulse rate Characteristics of Stepper Motor

The motor can start, synchronise and stop or reverse for the load torque ƮL if the pulse rate is
less than S1. The stepping rate can be increased for the same load as the rotor started the rotation
and synchronised.

Now, for the load ƮL1,after starting and synchronising, the stepping rate can be increased up to
S2without losing the synchronism.

If the stepping rate is increased beyond S2, the motor will lose synchronism. Thus, the area
between curves 1 and 2 represents the various torque values, the range of stepping rate, which
the motors follow without losing the synchronism when it has already been started and
synchronised.

This is known as Slew Range. The motor is said to operate in slewing mode.
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 Servo Motors
• There are some special types of application of electrical motor where rotation
of the motor is required for just a certain angle not continuously for long
period of time.

• For these applications, some special types of motor are required with some
special arrangement which makes the motor to rotate a certain angle for a
given electrical input (signal).

• For this purpose servo motor comes into picture.

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 Servo Motors

• This is normally a simple DC motor which is controlled for

specific angular rotation with the help of additional
servomechanism (a typical closed loop feedback control
system).
• Eg.Electronic Remote Controlled Toys…

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 Servomechanism Principal

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 Servomechanism Principal

• This input signal to the device presents as long as there is a logical difference between
reference input signal and the output signal of the system.

• After the device achieves its desired output, there will be no longer the logical difference
between reference input signal and reference output signal of the system.

• Then, the third signal produced by comparing theses above said signals will not remain
enough to operate the device further and to produce a further output of the system until the
next reference input signal or command signal is applied to the system.

• Hence, the primary task of a servomechanism is to maintain the output of a system at the
desired value in the presence of disturbances.
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 DC Servomotor: Classification

• if we control a DC motor by means of servomechanism, it

would be referred as DC servo motor.

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 DC servomotor Control

The motors which are utilized as DC servo motors, generally have

separate DC source for field winding and armature winding.
The control can be archived either by controlling the field current or
armature current.
Field control has some specific advantages over armature control and on
the other hand armature control has also some specific advantages over
field control.
Which type of control should be applied to the DC servo motor, is being
decided depending upon its specific applications.

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 Field Controlled DC Servo Motor Theory

• The figure below illustrates the schematic diagram for a field

controlled DC servo motor. In this arrangement the field of DC motor
is excited be the amplified error signal and armature winding is
energized by a constant current source .

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 Field Controlled DC Servo Motor
• The field is controlled below the knee point of magnetizing saturation curve. At that
portion of the curve the mmf linearly varies with excitation current. That means torque
developed in the DC motor is directly proportional to the field current below the knee
point of magnetizing saturation curve.

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 Armature Controlled DC Servo Motor Theory

• The figure below shows the schematic diagram for an armature

controlled DC servo motor. Here the armature is energized by
amplified error signal and field is excited by a constant current source.

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 Armature Controlled DC Servo Motor
• The field is operated at well beyond the knee point of magnetizing saturation curve. In this
portion of the curve, for huge change in magnetizing current, there is very small change in
mmf in the motor field. This makes the servo motor is less sensitive to change in field
current. Actually for armature controlled DC servo motor, we do not want that, the motor
should response to any change of field current.

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 Permanent Magnet DC Servo Motor

• Field control is not possible in the case of permanent magnet DC motor

as the field is a permanent magnet here. DC servo motor working
principle in that case is similar to that of armature controlled motor.

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 AC servomotor
• AC servo motors are basically two-phase squirrel cage induction motors and are
used for low power applications. Nowadays, three phase squirrel cage induction
motors have been modified such that they can be used in high power servo
systems.
• The main difference between a standard split-phase induction motor and AC motor
is that the squirrel cage rotor of a servo motor has made with thinner conducting
bars, so that the motor resistance is higher.
• Based on the construction there are two distinct types of AC servo motors, they
are synchronous type AC servo motor and induction type AC servo motor.

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 AC servomotor
• Synchronous-type AC servo motor consist of stator and rotor. The stator consists
of a cylindrical frame and stator core. The armature coil wound around the stator
core and the coil end is connected to with a lead wire through which current is
provided to the motor.

• The rotor consists of a permanent magnet and hence they do not rely on AC
induction type rotor that has current induced into it. And hence these are also
called as brushless servo motors because of structural characteristics.

• When the stator field is excited, the rotor follows the rotating magnetic field of the
stator at the synchronous speed. If the stator field stops, the rotor also stops. With
this permanent magnet rotor, no rotor current is needed and hence less heat is
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produced.
 AC servomotor

• Also, these motors have high efficiency due to the absence of rotor
current. In order to know the position of rotor with respect to stator, an
encoder is placed on the rotor and it acts as a feedback to the motor
controller.

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 AC servomotor

• The induction-type AC servo motor structure is identical with that of

general motor. In this motor, stator consists of stator core, armature
winding and lead wire, while rotor consists of shaft and the rotor core
that built with a conductor as similar to squirrel cage rotor.

• The working principle of this servo motor is similar to the normal

induction motor. Again the controller must know the exact position of
the rotor using encoder for precise speed and position control.

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Working Principle of AC Servo Motor

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 Working Principle of AC Servo Motor
In this, the reference input at which the motor shaft has to maintain at a certain position is given to the
rotor of synchro generator as mechanical input theta. This rotor is connected to the electrical input at
rated voltage at a fixed frequency.

The three stator terminals of a synchro generator are connected correspondingly to the terminals of
control transformer. The angular position of the two-phase motor is transmitted to the rotor of control
transformer through gear train arrangement and it represents the control condition alpha.

Initially, there exist a difference between the synchro generator shaft position and control transformer
shaft position. This error is reflected as the voltage across the control transformer. This error voltage is
applied to the servo amplifier and then to the control phase of the motor.

With the control voltage, the rotor of the motor rotates in required direction till the error becomes zero.
This is how the desired shaft position is ensured in AC servo motors.
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 DC SERVO MOTOR AC SERVO MOTOR

It delivers high power output Delivers low output of about 0.5 W to 100 W

It has more stability problems It has less stable problems

It requires frequent maintenance due to the presence It requires less maintenance due to the absence of
of commutator commutator

It provides high efficiency The efficiency of AC servo motor is less and is

about 5 to 20%

The life of DC servo motor depends on the life on The life of AC servo motor depends on bearing life
brush life

It includes permanent magnet in its construction The synchronous type AC servo motor uses
permanent magnet while induction type doesn’t
require it.

These motors are used for high power applications These motors are used for low power applications

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 Universal Motors
• The universal motor is special type of motor which is designed to operate on either dc or ac
supply at approximately the same speed and output. It is basically a series wound motor and
hence it has high starting torque and variable speed characteristics.

• A dc series motor suffers form the following drawbacks when operated on ac supply

i. Its efficiency will poor due to hysteresis and eddy current losses.

ii. Power factor of the motor is low due to inductive reactance of the field and armature
winding.iii. The sparking at the brushes will be excessive.

Therefore, some modification are necessary for the satisfactory operation of the universal motor
on ac supply
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 Universal Motors: Construction
Construction of a universal motor is very similar to the construction of a DC machine. It
consists of a stator on which field poles are mounted. Field coils are wound on the field
poles.

However, the whole magnetic path (stator field circuit and also armature) is laminated.
Lamination is necessary to minimize the eddy currents which induce while operating on
AC.

The rotary armature is of wound type having straight or skewed slots and commutator
with brushes resting on it.

The commutation on AC is poorer than that for DC. because of the current induced in the
armature coils. For that reason brushes used are having high resistance.

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Construction of Universal Motor

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Operation of Universal Motor

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Electrical Equivalent circuit for Universal Motor

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 Operation of Universal Motor
A universal motor works on either DC or single phase AC supply. When the universal
motor is fed with a DC supply, it works as a DC series motor. (see working of a DC series
motor here). When current flows in the field winding, it produces an electromagnetic
field. The same current also flows from the armature conductors. When a current carrying
conductor is placed in an electromagnetic field, it experiences a mechanical force. Due to
this mechanical force, or torque, the rotor starts to rotate. The direction of this force is
given by Fleming's left hand rule.

When fed with AC supply, it still produces unidirectional torque. Because, armature
winding and field winding are connected in series, they are in same phase. Hence, as
polarity of AC changes periodically, the direction of current in armature and field
winding reverses at the same time.
Thus, direction of magnetic field and the direction of armature current reverses in such a
way that the direction of force experienced by armature conductors remains same. Thus,
regardless of AC or DC supply, universal motor works on the same principle that DC
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series motor works.
 Universal Motors :Losses and Remedies....
1. To reduce the hysteresis and eddy current losses, the field structure is laminated.

2. Power factor is improved by reducing the reactance of armature and field winding. the
reactance of the filed winding is reduced by using small umber of turns of thick wire

3. To reduce the effect of armature reactance and thereby improve the commutation and to
reduce the armature reactance a compensating winding is used.

 The construction of universal motor is similar to dc series motor. However the whole
magnetic field structure is laminated to reduce the eddy current and hysteresis losses the
armature is of wound type with commutator and brushes and similar to small dc motor.

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 Universal Motors
Universal Motors are manufactured in two types-
1. concentrated – pole , non – compensated
2. Distributed – field compensated
• In case of large rating universal motors, a compensating winding is used for reducing
the reactance and to improve commutation this winding may be connected in series
with armature or may be short-circuit in itself. The compensated winding is placed in
the slot at 90 degree (elect.) with the main field axis.
• For high power ratings compensated type universal motors are used whereas for low
power rating uncompensated motor are used.
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 Application of Universal Motors

• Universal motors find their use in various home appliances like

vacuum cleaners, drink and food mixers, domestic sewing machine
etc.

• The higher rating universal motors are used in portable drills, blenders
etc.

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 Brushless DC Motor
• Classical DC motors are no doubt good and simple but inefficient in some
ways.

• Although dc motors possess good control characteristics and ruggedness,

their performance and applications are inhibited due to sparking and
commutation problems.

• The Permanent Magnet Brushless DC (PMBLDC) motor is able to

overcome the limitations mentioned above and satisfy the requirements of a
variable speed drive.

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Construction of Brushless DC Motor

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 Brushless DC Motor

• Stator consists of stacked steel laminations with windings placed in

the slots that are axially cut along the inner periphery.

• Rotor is made of permanent magnet and can vary from two to eight
pole pairs with alternate North (N) and South (S) poles. Ferrite
magnets and Rare earth alloy magnets are used in rotor

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 Advantages of Brushless DC Motor
• It is more efficient.

• Need less maintenance.

• It can operate higher speeds than conventional dc motor.

• High efficiency & small size are especially

• important for military, aircraft, & automotive application.

• Speed accuracy is very high.

• Speed control over a very wide speed range.

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 Disadvantages of Brushless DC Motor

• Requires Complex Drive Circuitry

• Requires additional Sensors

• Higher Cost

• Some designs require manual labor (Hand wound Stator Coils)

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Comparison

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 Linear Induction Motor

Linear Induction motor abbreviated as LIM, is basically a special

purpose motor that is in use to achieve rectilinear motion rather than
rotational motion as in the case of conventional motors

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 Construction of Linear Induction Motor
• Construction wise a LIM is similar to three phase
induction motor in more ways than one as it has
been depicted in the figure-

• In LIM stator and rotor are called primary and

secondary respectively. If the stator of the poly
phase induction motor shown in the figure is cut
along the section aob and laid on a flat surface,
then it forms the primary of the LIM housing the
field system, and consequently the rotor forms the
secondary consisting of flat aluminum conductors
with ferromagnetic core for effective flux linkage.

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 Construction of Linear Induction Motor

• There is another variant of LIM

also being used for increasing
efficiency known as the double
sided linear induction motor or
DLIM, as shown in the figure.

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 Application of Linear Induction Motor
A linear induction motor is not that widespread compared to a conventional motor, taking
its economic aspects and versatility of usage into consideration. But there are quite a few
instances where the LIM is indeed necessary for some specialized operations.

• Automatic sliding doors in electric trains.

• Mechanical handling equipment, such as propulsion of a train of tubs along a certain

route.

• Metallic conveyor belts.

• Pumping of liquid metal, material handling in cranes, etc.

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 Single phase induction motor
We use the single-phase power system more widely than three phase system for
domestic purposes, commercial purposes and some extent in industrial uses.
 Because, the single-phase system is more economical than a three-phase system
and the power requirement in most of the houses, shops, offices are small, which
can be easily met by a single phase system.
The single phase motors are simple in construction, cheap in cost, reliable and
easy to repair and maintain. Due to all these advantages, the single phase motor
finds its application in vacuum cleaners, fans, washing machines, centrifugal
pumps, blowers, washing machines, etc.

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 Construction of Single Phase Induction Motor

• Like any other electrical motor asynchronous motor also have two main parts namely rotor and
stator.

• Stator:
As its name indicates stator is a stationary part of induction motor. A single phase AC supply is
given to the stator of single phase induction motor.

• Rotor:
The rotor is a rotating part of an induction motor. The rotor connects the mechanical load
through the shaft. The rotor in the single-phase induction motor is of squirrel cage rotor type.
The construction of single phase induction motor is almost similar to the squirrel cage three-
phase induction motor. But in case of a single phase induction motor, the stator has two windings
instead of one three-phase winding in three phase induction motor.

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Split Phase Induction Motor

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Split Phase Induction Motor

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2. Shaded pole Induction motor

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 Shaded pole Induction motor

“Shading” coils
cause a delay in
the buildup of
Flux builds up faster flux.
in the “non-
shaded” regions of
the poles.

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 AC series Motor
If we connect normal dc series motor to ac what happens?
• Torque developed is not constant Magnitude
• Alternating flux induce eddy currents causing heat and there by loss
• No inductive coupling between armature and field since they are placed in
quadrature
• Sparking in brushes is more due to transformer emf induced
• Due to large voltage drop speed reduced
• Starting Torque is low, low pf

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 AC series Motor
Modification needed for ac series motor-
• To reduce eddy current loss-Laminations used
• To reduce reactance-series field should contains less number of turns
• To improve torque no. of armature conductors should be large
• To reduce reactance compensating winding should be used
• Operating voltage kept low to reduce inductance
• Reduce frequency to reduce inductance
• Inter poles to reduce armature resistance leads

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 AC series Motor: Modifications
• So considering above points we can say that we don’t have good performance of DC series motor on the
application of AC supply. Now in order to reduce the eddy currents there is need to laminate the yoke and
field core. This is our first modification to DC series motor.
What about power factor how we can improve power factor? Now the power factor is directly related to
reactance of the field and armature circuit and we can reduce the field winding reactance by reducing the
number of turns in the field winding.

• But there is one problem: on reducing the number of turns, field mmf will decrease and due to this the air gap
flux decrease. The overall result of this is that there is an increase in the speed of the motor but decrease in the
motor torque which is not desired. Now how to overcome this problem? The solution to this problem is the
use of compensating winding. On the basis of the usage of compensating winding we have two types of motor
and they are written below:

• Conductively compensated type of motors.

• Inductively compensated type of motors.

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 AC series Motor: Construction
• Motor connections, direction of torque, etc. for two successive half
cycles are shown in Fig.

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 Working Principle of AC series motor

• The working principle of an A.C. series motor is the same as that of the D.C.
series motor (Universal Motor).

• The armature and field are wound and interconnected in the same manner as the
D.C. series motor.

• When an alternating e.m.f. is applied to the terminals, since field and armature
windings are connected in series, the field flux and armature current reverse
simultaneously every half cycle, but the direction of the torque remains
unchanged.

• The torque is pulsating, but its average value is equal to that which a D.C. motor
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will develop if it had the same r.m.s. value of flux and current.
Thank You

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