Performances Analysis of SPWM Inverter-Fed Three Phase Induction Motor during Fault Conditions

Abstract

Induction motors are the most widely used electrical machines and the most popularly in the industrial applications, aerospace, and electrical vehicles or hybrid electrical vehicles. This celebrity of these machines because of some of their benefits such as: relatively low manufacturing cost, robust construction, moderate power factor, ability to operate in hostile environments, good reliability, and ease of control especially in the recent years. In fact, induction motors are the main component of many of these applications and they are used in the most of these applications with their power electronic drivers in order to control their speeds, torques, or control their starting conditions. However, these motors and their drivers may encounter several faults due to operating conditions. In fact, these faults are either due to the motor itself or due to its power electronic driver circuit. Therefore, this paper presents the performance analysis and simulation of a Sinusoidal pulse width Modulation (SPWM) inverter-fed three-phase induction motor under some fault conditions. Two different types of faults are studied and analyzed in detail. These faults were: driver single switch short circuit fault, and driver single switch open circuit fault. The motor currents and voltages at pre-fault and post-fault conditions are presented and investigated. In the two fault cases, the motor phase currents are changed and increased, but in different ratios, under same load conditions. Also, decreasing and oscillating in both motor speed and its developed torque are occurred due to these faults. The simulation and analysis results show that the single switch short circuit fault has the sever effect on the motor performance, therefore especial care should be taken under this fault conditions.