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0 pointshwillis6y ago0 comments

> Surely the advantage would be the same as for an IC engine.

No. The two types of motor are fundamentally different. Combustion engines need transmissions because they produce relatively constant torque (within 50% of max torque). Electric motors on the other hand produce relatively constant power.

This makes total sense when you think about it. An IC engine is powered by explosions; every explosion produces roughly the same force on the piston regardless of speed. You can't get more power without more explosions because you can't cram more air in the cylinder. You can only speed up the engine.

In an electric motor, you can cram as many electrons into the wires as you want. You are only limited by how much heat is generated. Increasing speed increases heat slower than increasing torque, but you can still basically increase either as much as you want.

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blattimwind6y ago· 2 in thread

> Electric motors on the other hand produce relatively constant power.

Generally speaking, no. P = 2piM*n, while the common types of motor used in electric drives (synchronous and asynchronous three phase machines) will produce nominal torque at (almost) any speed from 0 (not for asynchronous machines) to nominal speed; therefore output power is pretty much proportional to speed.

The only type of motor that comes to mind that has somewhat of a constant-power behaviour to it are series wound motors.

hwillisOP6y ago

What you're describing[1] is only true for fixed-voltage controllers. With a real driver, all motors will behave as I described, even induction motors[2]. The only caveat is that due to saturation and hysteresis there are obvious nonlinear regions where speed or torque can't be increased. Between those two regions, all motors are capable of constant power output. Air-core motors are in theory more ideal, but good luck getting them to behave.

In fact, it's a fundamental property of motors- the power constant. There is a torque constant (rpm/volt), a torque constant (torque/amp) and a motor constant that describes the efficiency of transformation from electrical to mechanical power.

[1]: http://raise.spd.louisville.edu/ECE252/images/L19-18.gif

[2]: http://www.eeeguide.com/speed-control-of-variable-frequency-...

[3]: http://www.motioncomp.com/pdfs/Motor_Constant_Great_Equalize...

blattimwind6y ago

You seem to misunderstand. Let's talk about an 15 kW asynchronous machine with two poles hooked up to a VFD. At nominal voltage (say 400 V) and nominal frequency (say 50 Hz) it will produce approx 50 Nm of torque to reach its nominal power (n ~ 2900 min^-1). Input current will be somewhere around 30 A. Let's say we want it to run at approx 300 min^-1, thus frequency is reduced to ~5 Hz and voltage to ~40 V. Output torque will still reach approx 50 Nm at the same current as it did at 50 Hz. However, output power is now approximately 1.5 kW. You can boost low-end torque a little bit, but not by much (every VFD offers some parameters for this), because this requires increasing the current.

If we were to run this motor "constant power" at 300 min^-1 it would provide about 500 N*m of torque and run at a hypothetical current of 300 A -- it's quite clear that that isn't going to go well.

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