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A typical drilling rig will be equipped with either shunt or series wound motors, rarely a mixture a of both.
The type of motor chosen is made at the system design stage and is unlikely to change through the
lifetime of the rig. This article describes the parameters which inform the decision to use either.
Theory of Operation
DC Motors consist of an armature and field. It is the interaction of the magenetic flux from each of these
which generates the motor torque. For high power DC motors the armature and the field fluxes will be
produced by electric windings, but on (very) small motors the field flux is more liklely to be produced by a
permanent magnet. The type of DC motors used on drilling rigs originated from the traction industry, i.e.
trains. In the early days the motor speed and torque would have been controlled by adjusting the field
current as this operates at a much lower current and voltage than the armature, and so controlling
equipment would have been cheaper. With the advent of high power thyristors it became possible to
control the armature current more efficiently which then led to the SCR control systems that are
commonly found on drilling rigs.
Shunt Motors
would indicate that, with a fully phased-up SCR bridge at 750VDC connected across it, the current flow
would be very high, but this is not the case. How can this be? The reason is that the motor rotates, and
this generates a back-EMF in the armature which opposes the forward drive of the SCR which makes the
apparent resistance much higher. If, however, the motor is loaded the speed drops and the back EMF
reduces and the current can increase for the same voltage. If the motor is stalled completely then there is
no back EMF and only the armature resistance (plus cable resistance) is in circuit to limit the current
unless the SCR regulator limits it by reducing the voltage (which is what happens in real life).
If the field flux is weakened, less back EMF is generated at a given speed and so less SCR voltage is
required to maintain a particular speed for a given load, but there is a trade-off in that less torque is
generated. Conversely if the field is strengthened I need more SCR voltage to maintain a particular
speed, but I get more torque. The amount torque and speed achieved for a given set of armature and field
conditions is a characteristic of the particular model of motor.
For a fixed field, the SCR voltage is very nearly linearly proportional to the speed of the motor, so the
designer can use this in his regulator design as his speed feedback. An encoder, tacho or other feedback
device is not required. If I want to connect the motors in parallel (as a Mud Pump drive, for example) I
have a problem because if the motors are not perfectly and exactly matched in every respect (which is
impossible to achieve) one motor will begin to absorb more of the load than the other, which will tend to
reduce the back EMF, meaning that it will absorb even more current until the current limit of the SCR acts
to limit it. The current limit for parallel motors might be 1600A (800A per motor), so if one motor is
absorbing the lot it's not going to last very long. For this reason parallel motor systems with shunt motors
have a current balancing system which adjusts the field current of one (or both) of the motors to
compensate (see the article onTroubleshooting Mud Pump Field Supplies for more details).
Series Motors
overcome by using an independant speed feedback device (tacho or encoder) or by utilising a speed
calculator circuit which factors in the changing field flux dependant on armature current.
The huge advantage of series motors is that when connected in parallel they will naturally load share.
This is because if the load increases in one motor so does the field flux which increases the back EMF
making the armature draw less current, and vice-versa. They are naturally self-regulating. The danger
with this system is that if one of the motors becomes mechanically disconnected from the load it will be
subjected to the full armature voltage and will overspeed. For this reason a protective circuit such as Mud
Pump Sprocket Slip Detection is used to ensure that both motors are loaded. (The description 'Sprocket
Slip' refers to the drive chain and sprockets found on dual motor Mud Pumps where at high speed the
drive chain can rise off the sprockets if too slack).
Conclusion
So there you have it, not much to choose between either, except that with series motors you save on field
supplies and field-regulated load sharing, but you do need sprocket slip protection. For the SCR system
designer there is another factor for consideration where reversing drives (e.g. Rotary Table, Drawworks)
are used. To reverse a DC motor either the field or armature voltage must be reversed, not both. With
shunt motors this is fairly easy to achieve by field or armature reversing but with series motors the
switching required is a little more involved. With shunt motors the design engineer can implement field
weakening or strengthening to suit a particular application, e.g. winch controls, which is not practical with
series motors, and will not be a consideration if the field supply has fixed voltage and/or current.
Troubleshooting Power Limit Problems (Ross Hill, Hill Graham SCR Systems)
Last Updated: 22 December 2014 | Written by Gary Barnes |
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It is an unfortunate characteristic of SCR systems that the Power Factor (the relationship between real
and reactive power) is poor - often down as low as 0.4 - which maeans that the KW capacity of the
engines is under-utilised. This often leads to frustration because the rig runs out of power, yet the engines
may be only delivering half of their full-load capacity. This article explains how the Power Limit system
works and what can be done to ensure it is working at its optimal level.
In general terms, the KW the system consumes is provided by the engine. The other limitation on power
delivery is the current capacity of the generator, which is often expressed as a VA or KVA value. SCR
systems are designed with something like a 0.7 Power Factor rating; in other words, the KW of the engine
will be 0.7 x the KVA rating of the generator. This goes some way to compensating for the poor Power
Factor, but often is insufficient during operations where where the Mud Pumps are heavily loaded.
However, measures are still available to ensure that the system is delivering what it can within these
physical limitations, one one thing to ensure is that the Power Limit system is working optimally.
Theory of Operation
Load Sharing
Troubleshooting Mud Pump Field Supplies (Ross Hill, Hill Graham SCR Systems)
Last Updated: 22 December 2014 | Written by Gary Barnes |
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One of the most common problem encountered with Ross Hill or Hill Graham type Mud Pump Field
supplies is field unbalance tripping, which causes the main DC contactors to open and requires a reset.
The problem is more likely to occur under heavy load conditions, and resluts in the complete loss of the
Mud Pump, so is a particular nuisance. This article describes some of the measures you can take to
identify and resolve the problem.
Theory of Operation
The active field supply is used to achieve balanced load sharing between two shunt DC motors connected
in parallel to a single SCR. It actually consists of two field supplies: one which is fixed (a diode rectifier),
and the other (an SCR rectifier) which is varied to achieve load balancing. The field current controls the
back EMF produced in each motor armature, which opposes the forward drive voltage from the SCR. The
bigger the difference, the more current that flows in the armature. A weaker field will produce less back
EMF (for a given speed) and hence more armature current. A stronger field will produce more back EMF
which will oppose the armature current thus reducing current flow.
Troubleshooting
While nuisance tripping is a problem, it occurs because the system is working to protect itself, so
disabling the tripping interlock is not advisable.
After checking connections and tightness of terminations, the first thing to check is the output from the
HED. Generally, on Ross Hill or Hill Graham systems the HED output is scaled either at 650mV/1000A,
or 360mV per 1000A depending on which type of HED is fitted. The 650mV HEDs were fitted on older
systems (pre 1980-ish) and are black or dark grey in appearance. Later rigs had 360mV/1000A HEDs and
are light grey, or bluish-grey. Note that the Active Field Regulator should be calibrated for the type of HED
fitted. The only sure-fire way of checking if the HED is working correctly is to verify it with another
instrument such as a DC clamp meter,
The trip level is around 200A current unbalance. If the HED is tripping before this level is reached there
may be a problem with the calibration of the Active Field Regulator PCB. If, however, the trip is occurring
because of a current imbalance then the cause must be investigated. Here are some possibilities:
Mismatched motors
The motors which are connected in parallel must be of a similar make and model. The regulation system
can only work to compensate for variations in the manufacture of similar motors, not compensate for a
total mismatch. If balancing problems are experienced after changing one motor this may be the cause.
The active field supply is a half-controlled SCR bridge and as such, is suspect to failures of thyristors,
pulse transformers, etc in the same way that the main SCR bridge is. It is also not uncommon for
excessive supply waveform distortion to cause the field thyristors to spontaneously switch off. If this is
occurring there will be a split second between the field shutting down and the trip occurring because the
field supply current takes a while to collapse. Another symptom of this is when tripping only occurs when
there are additional loads on the system such as another Mud Pump under load or Rotary Table or Top
Drive loads.