INDUCTION MOTOR* PARAMETERS LOCKED ROTOR TEST

EXTRACTION The locked rotor test, like short circuit test on a transformer,
Sinisa Jurkovic provides the information about leakage impedances and rotor
resistance. Rotor is at the stand still, while low voltage is applied
INTRODUCTION to stator windings to circulate rated current. Measure the voltage
The parameters of equivalent circuit of Induction Machines are and power to the phase. Since there is no rotation slip, s=1 which
crucial when considering advanced control techniques (i.e. gives us following equivalent circuit.
Vector Control). Accidentally these are also uncertain parameters
when the machine is released from production. The most
common ways, to manually determine induction motor
parameters, are to test motor under no-load and locked rotor
conditions.

FIRST NO-LOAD TEST
The no-load test, like the open circuit test on a transformer, gives
information about exciting current and rotational losses. The test
is performed by applying balanced rated voltage on the stator
windings at the rated frequency. The small power provided to the
machine is due to core losses, friction and winding loses.
Machine will rotate at almost a synchronous speed, which makes
slip nearly zero. This test is represented with an equivalent
circuit in Figure 1.
Figure 2. Equivalent Circuit for Locked Rotor Test
Note that Rr is much less than Rc so that part of the circuit is
ignored. Values measured during the locked rotor test are shown
in Table 2.
L o c k e d R o to r T e s t
V 90 V

I r a te d 6 .1 A

Im e a su re d 6 .1 A
Figure 1. Equivalent Circuit for No-Load Test fs 60 Hz
Values measured during this test are current and it’s angle with
respect to know voltage. From this we can calculate total power P 724 W
supplied to the machine. Measured values are shown in Table 1.
Table 2. Values Measured during Locked Rotor Test
Assuming known Rs and values in the Table 2, we can calculate
N o L o a d M o to r T e s t Lls, Llr and Rr, ss shown below.
P ph 724 / 3
cos( φ sc ) = = = 0 . 44
V ph I sc 90 • 6 . 1
V ll 208 V
φ sc = 64 °
I0 1 .5 A V ph 90
Z sc = = = 14 . 8 Ω
I sc 6 .1
I0 m a x 1 .7 A
R r = Z sc cos( φ sc ) − R s = 14 . 8 • 0 . 44 − 2 . 3 = 4 . 2 Ω
fs 60 Hz X eq = Z sc sin( φ sc ) = 14 . 8 • sin( 64 ° ) = 13 . 3 Ω
X eq = X ls + X lr
P 49 W
X ls = X lr = 6 . 7 Ω
Table 1. Values measured during no-load test. L ls = L lr = 17 . 5 mH
Assuming that Rc is much bigger than Rs and Xlr we can
calculate Rc and Lm from the equivalent circuit. The formulas EXPERIMENT REMARKS
and complete calculations are shown below. The parameters extracted from the Induction Machine are
reasonable when compared with similar examples, however they
49 do raise the question of how confident can one be in them? To
P ph answer this question another set of tests is performed on the same
cos( φ 0) = = 3 = 0.09 machine.
V ph I 0 121.4 • 1.5
φ 0 = 84.8 ° NO-LOAD TEST
Performing a no-load test under same conditions, but this time a
Im = I 0 sin( φ 0) = 1.5 sin(84.8 °) = 1.485 A
rotor is rotated at the synchronous speed with DC machine and
Ic = I 0 cos( φ 0) = 1.5 cos(84.8 °) = 0.135 A rated voltage and frequency is applied. This test should yield
V ph 121.4 more accurate results, since the slip is now exactly zero (i.e.
Lm = = = 0.23 H rotating at the synchronous speed).Following the exact same
2 πf sIm 2 π • 60 • 1.485 formulas to calculate the parameters we obtain results shown
V ph 121.4 below.
Rc = = = 900 Ω
Ic 0.135
 In addition to this a second locked rotor test was performed,
First No-Load Second No-Load Percent where we used lower frequency (15 Hz)*** to circulate the rated
Parameter
Test Test Error ** current. This test returned results that were almost identical to the
results of the first test, so comparison of the two is omitted.
Im [A] 1.485 1.345 10.409
Ic [A] 0.135 0.113 19.469 NOTES
Rc {Ohms] 900.000 2010.000 55.224 * 2HP 4 Pole Induction Machine, 1725 RPM, 208/230V-460V,
6.2/5.8A-2.9A.
Lm [H] 0.230 0.323 28.793 **
The error is calculated with respect to second no-load test.
***
pf 0.090 0.084 7.143 Lower frequency is used to circulate the rated current. IEEE
Table 3. No-Load Tests Comparisson recommends a frequency of ¼ of the rated when performing the
locked rotor test. [2]. This method will generally yield more
RESULTS VALIDATION accurate results in case of larger machines (20 HP and up), while
For the validation of the results we calculate the torque under for the smaller machines using the rated frequency is satisfactory.
rated conditions and compare it with torque specifications
provided by the manufacturer of the machine. REFERENCES
Rated torque is 11.2 Nm as provided by the machine [1]. R. Krishnan, Electric Motor Drives Modeling, Analysis, and
manufacturer. Control, Prentice Hall 2001
Given the rated voltage of 208 V line-to-line and rated speed of [2]. P. C. Sen, Principles of Electric Machines & Power
1725 RPM using the following formula we can calculate the Electronics, Wiley 1999
torque under rated conditions. Note that this is 2 pole machine. [3]. W. Leonhard, Control of Electrical Drives, Springer 2001
p Vs 1 [4]. E.G. Strangas, Notes for an Introductory Course On
T =3 ( )^ 2 ωr Electrical Machines and Drive, MSU
2 ωs Rr
where ωr is the frequency of the currents induced in the rotor,
and ωs is the frequency of stator voltage. This calculation yields a
torque of 11.2 Nm.
Alternatively torque can be calculated from the equivalent circuit
in Figure 3. using the following formula.

p Pg
T =3 ( )
2 ωs
Pg is power in the air gap of the machine. As the circuit indicates
part of this power is converted to mechanical energy, while the
other part represents the losses in the rotor resistance.

Figure 3. Induction Machine Equivalent Circuit

Solving the circuit at rated conditions we obtain the following:
Pg = 678W which gives us the torque of T=10.6 Nm. This gives
us a error 10% between the manufacturer’s specified rated torque
and calculate torque based on the parameters extracted.
This error is minimal and acceptable which validates the
accuracy of test results.

CONCLUSION
We assume that the second test provided us with more accurate
results; therefore the percent error is expressed with respect to
those results. The percent error between the two tests is
reasonable for each parameter with the exception of core
equivalent resistance Rc. It is however still safe to say that we
can be fairly confident in the results of either test (looking from
the control point of view) since the Rc does not play a role in
implementing a control for the machine. Rc is more important
when it comes to estimating the efficiency of the machine, in
which case results of the second case would be more credible.