IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 47, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 2075
Integrated Differential-Mode and Common-Mode
Filter to Mitigate the Effects of Long
Motor Leads on AC Drives
Rangarajan M. Tallam, Senior Member, IEEE, Gary L. Skibinski,
Todd A. Shudarek, and Richard A. Lukaszewski, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) ac drives generate
high differential-mode (DM) motor voltages due to the reflected
wave phenomenon. The common-mode (CM) voltage produced
by a PWM inverter also has fast transitions that result in high
peak currents to ground. For low-power ac drives, this can present
several issues, such as pump-up of the dc bus and failure of the
power module due to high instantaneous currents that are often
undetected because of the typical sampling algorithm used. In this
paper, existing drive output filter solutions are reviewed, and a new
filter design is presented, which has integrated DM and CM im-
pedance with damping matched to typical cable surge impedance.
This eliminates reflections of both DM and CM traveling waves
and also reduces peak cable charging currents. Experimental re-
sults are provided to demonstrate that the new filter has improved
performance to reduce motor DM and CM voltages and drive
output CM current, thus mitigating the issues specifically seen
with low-power ac drives. Complete design details for the filter
and a particular implementation of the integrated DM and CM
reactor are also presented.
Index Terms—AC drives, common mode, differential mode,
pulsewidth modulation (PWM), reflected wave.
I. I NTRODUCTION
I
T IS WELL KNOWN that, with long motor leads,
pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) ac drives generate high
differential-mode (DM) voltages at the motor terminals [1]. In
addition, the common-mode (CM) voltage produced by an ac
drive has fast transitions, resulting in high peak cable charging
currents. For low-power drives, this presents several issues:
pump-up of the dc bus voltage [2] occurs particularly when
the drive is lightly loaded; high repetitive peak cable charging
currents can lead to overcurrent trips or power module failure.
Hence, the maximum lead length permissible between drive and
motor is severely limited by cable charging current.
Several different drive filter topologies have been proposed in
the literature to mitigate the effect of long motor leads [3]–[5].
Manuscript received October 4, 2010; revised November 30, 2010 and
February 26, 2011; accepted April 5, 2011. Date of publication July 7, 2011;
date of current version September 21, 2011. Paper 2010-IDC-385.R2, presented
at the 2010 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, Atlanta, GA,
September 12–16, and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Drives Committee of the IEEE
Industry Applications Society.
R. M. Tallam, G. L. Skibinski, and R. A. Lukaszewski are with Rockwell
Automation, Mequon, WI 53092 USA (e-mail: rmtallam@ra.rockwell.com;
glskibinski@ra.rockwell.com; ralukaszewski@ra.rockwell.com).
T. A. Shudarek is with the MTE, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051 USA (e-mail:
tashudarek@cramercoil.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2011.2161431
Most of these filters address only DM motor voltage ring-up.
The reflected wave is damped by using a resistor matched to
the DM cable surge impedance. Some filters include separate
CM impedance [4] to reduce peak cable charging currents—a
typical implementation is placing the three-phase leads through
a set of CM cores—but little or no damping results in ring-up
of the motor terminal CM voltage and undamped oscillations in
the CM current.
In this paper, a new drive output filter topology is proposed,
which has integrated DM and CM impedance, with damp-
ing resistance matched to typical cable surge impedance for
both modes. This eliminates the reflections of DM and CM
traveling waves and consequently reduces peak line–line and
line–ground cable charging currents and peak motor DM and
CM voltages. The damping of motor CM voltage also reduces
the peak voltage across the motor bearings.
Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that the
new filter has improved performance to reduce motor DM and
CM voltages and drive output CM current, thus mitigating the
issues specifically seen with low-power ac drives. Analytical
design equations for the filter inductance, resistance, and power
loss are provided. In addition, design details for a particular
implementation of the integrated DM and CM reactor that was
used in the experimental tests are also presented.
II. I SSUES FOR LOW-POWER AC DRIVES
WITH LONG MOTOR LEADS
In addition to the high DM motor voltages that occur due to
the reflected wave effect, the CM voltage generated by ac drives
presents several issues, particularly for low-power ac drives.
A. Cable Charging Current
Due to the fast rise time of the PWM voltage pulses, large
spikes of current flow through the line–line and line–ground
cable capacitances at every switching transition. This current
is superimposed on the normal-mode motor currents. At low
fundamental output frequencies, the dwell time on the active
switching states is small; this results in nearly simultaneous
switching on all three phases and step change in CM volt-
age equal to the dc-bus voltage, resulting in high peak cable
charging currents. If the peak current exceeds the instantaneous
peak rating of the drive, an overcurrent trip occurs. While
the overcurrent detection circuitry is implemented with analog
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