Prediction of Harmonics Produced by Multiple Variable Speed

Drives with Randomly Fluctuating Loads

Eloi NGANDUI

El Jihad MOHAMMED

Ahmed CI&NTI

Chaire de Recherche Induskelle Hydro-Quebec/CRSNG

Departement of Electrical and computer Engineering
Universitk du Quebec a Trois-Rivikres
P.O. Box 500, Trois-Rivikres, QC, Canada, G9A 5H7
Tel. : (819) 376 5011 ext. 3925; Fax. : (819) 376 5219;
e-mail : eloi nmndui@,uqtr.uquebec.ca

Abstract'
This paper presents statistical description of the magnitude
of the sum of injected harmonic currents produced by
multiple ac drive with randomly fluctuating loads using
bivariate normal distribution (BND) method. The effects of
motors speeds and input line reactance variations upon the
probabilistic behavior of the magnitude of the vectorial sum
of random harmonic vectors are investigated. Monte Carlo
simulation is performed to just& the obtained results.

1 Introduction
With the passing years, the number and the power ratings
of variable speed drives do not cease growing in the electrical
distribution systems so that, harmonics which they generate
become alarming for electrical supply utilities and consumers
considering the harmful effects which they create. The
increasing emphasis on overall power system efficiency has
resulted in a continued growth in the application of variable
speed drives and consequently in increasing harmonic levels.
For accurate prediction of the harmonics effect on electrical
equipment and power devices optimization, it is very
important to take into account the randomly varying
operating conditions of variable speed drives. Several studies
have suggested that to achieve a more realistic analysis of
harmonic problems, the probabilistic approach is suitable
since it allows to take into account the random variations of
harmonics [l-41. The simplest tool for achieving the vectorial
sum of random harmonic vectors resorts to a Monte Carlo
simulation. However, Monte Carlo simulation is time
consuming and does not provide an intuitive insight to the
problem of harmonic currents summation. Analytical
methods based on models such as bivariate normal
distribution (BND) are indispensable to the interpretation of
results obtained from the simulation. The BND model is
based on the assumption that, if several number of
independent random nonlinear loads operate simultaneously,

then the resolved components of the total hth harmonic

current vector or phasor injected in the power system have a
jointly normal probability density (jpdf) regardless of the
individual loads [l-31.
The BND model contained five parameters, i.e., the mean
values and variances of the two resolved sums and their
correlation coefficient, which were used by Wang et al. [2] to
determine the probabilistic behavior of the magnitude of the
resultant harmonic currents produced by ten dc drives with
randomly varying loads reflected by random firing angles of
ac/dc thyristor converters. Kaprielian et al. [3] also employed
BND approach to predict voltage distortion in a distributed
power system containing fourteen dc drives with randomly
varying torques and speeds. Their analysis were successfully
tested by using both simulation and field measurements. The
deterministic model of acldc thyristor converter used in [2]
was derived with the assumption of zero commutating
reactance. However, it was shown in [4] that commutating
reactance affects the statistical characteristics of current
harmonics produced by a six-pulse acldc thyristor converter
that operate under random variations of its load. The aim of
this paper is to use BND model for statistical description of
the sum of injected harmonic currents produced by multiple
induction motor drives with randomly fluctuating loads using
the deterministic model of induction motor drive proposed in
[4]. The effects of motors speeds and commutating reactance
variations upon the probabilistic behavior of the magnitude of
the vectorial sum of random harmonic vectors produced by
several ac drives are investigated. Monte Carlo simulation is
performed to justify the obtained results.

2 AC drive model
The ac drive considered here is shown in fig. 1. The
inverter is supplied by a six-pulse thyristor rectifier through a
LC filter. The three-phase induction motor is supplied by a
six-pulse voltage-source inverter. The ac current waveform is
mainly generated by the rectifier, which constitute the first
stage of the converter. The following simplifying

0-7803-5957-7/00/$10.00
0 2000 IEEE

1157

assumptions are made: perfectly balanced supply voltage and

smooth dc current, i.e. very large smoothing inductance Ld.

qq+

where v d and Id are the input voltage and current of the

inverter respectively; R, is the motors rotor resistance
referred to the stator; T is the torque and o is the speed of the
induction motor; all the preceding quantities are expressed in
per unit. Equations (5) and (6) are valid only at speeds for
which air gap flux is maintained constant, i.e. speeds less
then 1.O p.u. Assuming that the per unit torque-speed relation
of the driven load is a straight line from a minimum speed of
to a maximum speed of cq-, the torque can be
expressed as:

Fig. 1 - Induction motor drive scheme

2.1 Rectifier Model

The rectifier equations are given by [4][6]:

(7)

T=mw+b

By combining eqns. (l), (2), (5) and (6), the following

equations can be established

f 3 V L N cos(h + 1)a - COS(^ + 1)s

h+l
2nh xc
- cos@ -1)a- cos@ - 1)s
h-1
zx=-

R,m
cosa =

A
++ -9mJ xz c

&

sin(h + 1)a - sin(h + 1)s

h+l

- sin(h - 1)s
+ sin(h - 1)ah-1

cos6 =

&
Rr m
6

- -9mJXz c

2.2 Induction Motor drive

It is assumed that constant voltshertz control is maintained
in the drive with the inverter establishing the frequency and
the rectifier controlling the voltage. Considering the study
presented in [4] and carrying out some manipulations, it can
be established that the steady state model of the induction
motor drive is described by the following per unit equations
at low values slip and constant air gap flux (the flux is
maintained at its rated value):

1158

9fi

A&
9fi
+ -R,-,x,

A
i- -

&

=CO+D

where X, is the commutating reactance; a is the firing angle;

6 is the extinction angle; Vis the rms line to line fundamental
voltage; v d is the average dc output voltage of the rectifier; Id
is the average dc output current supply by the rectifier; Z, and
Iy are real and imaginary parts of the rms harmonic current
phasor of order h (the correct polarity is deduced from h = 6q
f I ) , respectively; V , is the rms line to neutral fundamental
voltage. Considering dc and line voltage bases to be equal
and by equating dc and ac power bases, eqns. (l), (2), (3) and
(4) are identical in both actual units and in per unit.

A&

-Rr+-XXc
6
A2

1.35 V

k 3 VLN
Zy=-[ 2 d l X c

IC2

A2

1.35 V
(9)

The rectangular components Z, and Z

, ,given by (3) and (4),
can be written as function of W, i.e. I, = g(o) and Zy = h(@,
by using eqns. (8) and (9) and some trigonometric identities
as shown in [4] (see appendix).

3 Summation of probabilistic harmonic phasors

3.1 Random phasor

The statistical description of a random phasor r o f real
component X and imaginary component Y requires the
determination of joint statistics of a pair of real random
variables (x.,
The joint distribution Fxr(x,y) is the
probability of the event {X I x, Y Iy } , where the capital
letters represent the random variables and the lower case
represent the corresponding particular values. The jpdf of X
and Y is by definition the function:

The mean and the standard deviation of a random variable

(.) are usually indicated as po, o(,). The correlation

The probability of the harmonic phasor magnitude not

exceeding some harmonic level I,,,,, is determined by:

coefficient p of X and Y is given by:

3.3 Determination of parameters

The statistical parameters of the joint density (13) can be
obtained from the statistical parameters of N ac drives as
follows :

3.2 Summation of random phasors

The sum of N random phasors gives:

k=l

k=l

k=l

where Xk and Yk are real and imaginary components of the hth

harmonic current generated by the kth harmonic current
. generated by the kth harmonic source and S and W the
algebraic sums of the N resolved components. The BND
model is subsequently applied to the summation problem.
For sufficiently large number N of independent harmonic
sources, the marginal pdfs of S and W approach normal pdfs
by virtue of the central limit theorem. It was proved in [2]
that the marginal normality of S and W implies that they
jointly normal. The joint density fsw of S and W is solely
determined by their mean values ps and pw, their standard
deviations OS and ow and their correlation coefficient r; f s w
has the form:

Since the evaluation of harmonic current effects requires

the knowledge of harmonic magnitude I, it is necessary to
extract the pdf of I from its jpdf. The pdf of I is obtained by
changing variables in (13): s = i cos@,w = i sin@.Thus, the
pdf of I is given by the following relation [7]:

f ( i )=

Jpf s w (i cos 4, i sin@)id@

(15)

The cumulative distribution function (cdf) of a random

variable indicates the probability that the variable is less than
or equal to a given value. This information is very interesting
for ac systems where high maximum value of harmonics
appear rarely. It is economical to consider harmonic current
distortion levels that are not exceeded 95 YOof the time for
equipment design. These levels can be used for comparison
with the maximum levels recommended by standards [5].

where,

4 Simulation results
A system containing N identical ac drives that operate
independently is shown in fig. 2. Since our primary focus is
the analytical approach, some simplifying assumptions are
made to reduce computational efforts. Interactions which can
appear between drives due to ac reactances are not
considered. The ac drives are assumed to have the same
power and voltage ratings; they have the same per unit
parameters : m = -1.4, b = 1.9, R, = .05 p.u. and V = 1.0 p.u.
Each drive speed w is chosen randomly and independently of
each other, between
and U,,,, with a uniform distribution
(?Cain

1159

- 0ma1).

used to compute pdfs using and cdfs using (15) and (16),
respectively. As can be noticed in those figures, there is
significant difference due to commutation. As ac reactance
increases the magnitude of the sum of the harmonic current
reduces for a given probability. There's significant reduction
in higher order harmonic magnitude as ac reactance
increases. It has been observed that when X, increases,
vectorial sums of higher order harmonic currents approaches
rapidly to their arithmetical sums.

Fig. 2 - An ac system containing N ac drives

4.1 AC reactance effects

The ac reactance effects are studied for a system
containing ten ac drives. The values of other parameters are
maintained constant while the source reactance variations are
limited between 0 and 0.1 p.u. Each drive speed w is chosen
randomly and independently of each other, between ai,,
=
0.5 p.u. and %=
1.0 p.u (U[O.5-1.01). with a uniform
distribution. The mean values and standard deviations of real
and imaginary components of the sum of harmonic currents
produced by ten ac drives have been calculated using eqns.
(17)-(2 1) and results are listed in Table I, I1 and 111 (note that
all quantities are in pa.). The simulations are carried out,
using the software package Matlab to investigate the effects
of ac reactance on random features of harmonic summation.
By comparing table I, I1 and 111 the significance of
commutation can be observed.
Table I: statistical parameters; N = 10, X, = 0 P.u.;U[O.5-1.01

05

1.5
2
2.5
ilh ham& curmm 0 Y.)

.\

1.5

Fig. 3 - cdfs curves of iph for different values of ac.

reactance: (-): X, = 0 P.u.; (+):X, = 0.05 PA.; (0): X, =
0.10 p.u.
Table 11: statisticalparameters; N = 10, X, = 0.05 P.u.; U[O.5-1.01

Table 111: statistical parameters; N = 10,X, = 0.10 P.u.;UrO.5-1.01

h
OW
r
OS
PW
Cls
5
1.3235 -1.1132
0.3714
0.6626
0.2431
0.3510
-0.2159
0.4550
0.5954 0.4527
7
11 0.2125 -0.0744
0.2062
0.2259
-0.1287
0.1655
0.1447
0.0063
13 0.1055 0.1209
The cdfs curves of harmonic currents iph resulting from
combination of ish produced by 10 converters are shown in
fig. 3 (5th, 7th, 11th and 13th resultant harmonics). The
statistical parameters data listed in Tables I, I1 and 111 are

1160

4.1 Effects of speed ranges variations

In this section ac reactance is neglected in order to make
clear distinction between phenomenon which can appear.
Statistical parameters of the sum of harmonic currents
produced by ten drives are calculated for three different
variation intervals of motor speeds with uniform distributions
UrO.7- 1.O], UrO.5-0.81 and U[O.3-0.91. The corresponding
statistical parameters of the sum of harmonic currents
produced by ten drives are used to compute their pdfs.
The cdfs curves of 5th, 7th, llth, and 13th resultant
harmonic currents corresponding to three different variation
intervals of the speed w are shown in fig. 4. The
modifications due to these intervals can be observed on those
curves. For a given probability, let say 0.95, uniform
distribution between ai,,
= 0.5 p.u. and & = 0.8 results in
higher values of harmonic current magnitude. This illustrates
that resultant harmonic distributions are greatly influenced by
interval variations of speeds. Thus, in the prediction analysis

of harmonic currents produced by several drives care must be

taken to accurately identify the interval variations of speed.

5 Conclusion
This study focused on analyzing the statistical parameters
of the BND model of several induction motor drives
employing six-pulse thyristor converters. By using the
deterministic model of the converters and a piece-wise
approximation of torque-speed characteristics of mechanical
loads, the pdfs and cdfs of the sum of harmonic currents were
derived in terms of motor speeds applying BND approach.
Numerical results were provided to show the effect of
commutation and the influence of the variations interval of
motors speeds on the resultant harmonic currents.
Comparison of the pdfs obtained from the BND model and
those from Monte Carlo simulation has shown that the BND
model is justified when N 2 5 in our illustrative numerical
example.

h\

References

05

1.5

Fig. 4 - cdfs .curves of iph for three variation

intervals of w: (-): U[O.7-1.01; (+): U[O.5-0.8]; (0):
U[O.3-0.9].

4.3 Comparison with Monte Carlo Simulation

A Matlab program using Monte Carlo simulation technique
has been written to simulate the system shown in fig.2. All
simulations have been made using 10 000 trials. The pdfs
calculated using the BND are plotted in fig. 5. In these
figures, results obtained from Monte Carlo simulation are
also shown. Comparison of the pdfs curves obtained from the
BND model and those obtained from Monte Carlo simulation
clearly shows that N 2 5 the results from the BND model
agree with the simulation.

2
3
4
I t h h l m ~ n l ~ c ~ i i mIt ( p ~

7th h w n c u r r r t (pu )

a)
b)
Fig. 5 - pdfs (curves) of the resultant harmonic
currents iph produced by 3, 5 and 10 induction drives
and the results of Monte Carlo simulation (dots)

[l] W.E. Kazibwe, T.A. Ortmeyer and M.S.A.A. Hammam,

Summation of Probabilistic Harmonic Vectors, IEEE
Trans. On Power Del., vol. 4, No. 1, Jan. 1989, pp. 621-628.
[2] Y.J. Wang, L. Pierrat, and L. Wang Summation of harmonic
currents produced by acldc static power converters with randomly
fluctuating loads, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, vol. 9, No. 2,
1994, pp. 1129-1135.
[3] S.R. Kaprielian, A.E. Emanuel, R.V. Dwyer and H.
Melita, Predicting Voltage Distortion in a System with
Multiple Random Harmonic Sources, IEEE Trans. on
Power Delivery, vol. 9, No. 3, July 1994, pp. 1632-1638.
[4] S.R. Kaprielian and A. Rabbani, Determining the joint
Moments of a Motor Drives Harmonic Current Phasors, ZEEE
Trans. on Power Delivery, vol. 11, No. 1, 1996, pp. 444-451.
[5] IEEE-5 19, Recommended practices and requirements for
harmonic control in electric power systems, 2nded., 1992.
[6] A. Papoulis, Probability random variable and stochastic
processes, McGraw Hill, New York, 1991.

Appendix
Rectangular components Z, and Zy , given by (3) and (4),
can be written as Z, = g(w) and I, = h(w), by using eqns. (8) and (9)
and the following trigonometric identities:

For easy evaluation of g(w) and h(o) of higher order

harmonics, eqn. (27) obtained for low order harmonics can be
coupled with the following recurrent relations:
cos m = 2 cos(n - 1)x cos x - cos@- 2)x
sin m = 2 sin(n - 1)xcosx - sin(n - 2)x

1161