1336 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000
Motor Shaft Voltages and Bearing Currents and Their
Reduction in Multilevel Medium-Voltage PWM
Voltage-Source-Inverter Drive Applications
Fei Wang, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents test results on problems
and solutions of motor shaft voltages and bearing currents in
medium-voltage pulsewidth modulated (PWM) drive systems.
Tests show that multilevel medium-voltage PWM voltage-source-
inverter drives can cause motor bearing currents, similar to a
low-voltage PWM drive, even with one motor bearing insulated.
Common-mode voltages generated as a result of PWM switching
are observed on motor windings and capacitively coupled to the
motor shaft, leading to bearing currents. Potential solutions, in-
cluding altering common-mode circuitry, changing the grounding
scheme, providing common-mode filtering, and grounding the
motor shaft, are investigated. Test results on their effectiveness
are presented.
Index Terms—Bearing current, multilevel voltage-source in-
verter, shaft voltage.
I. INTRODUCTION
I F THERE is sufficient voltage buildup across a motor
bearing between the motor shaft and frame, it is possible
to have bearing currents that can damage the bearing. Motor
shaft voltage and bearing current problems have long been
recognized with earlier concerns mainly on circulating bearing
currents due to magnetic asymmetry in motors, which led
to the practice of insulating one bearing in large motors [1].
With the recent advent of adjustable-speed drives, in particular,
pulsewidth modulated (PWM) voltage-source-inverter (VSI)
drives, new sources and mechanisms of producing shaft volt-
ages and bearing currents due to inverter-generated common
—mode voltages have been identified. As summarized by Chen
et al. [6], [7], there are three general types of motor bearing
currents that can be associated with PWM VSI drives:
1) bearing current due to discharge of equivalent capacitance
between shaft (rotor) and frame (stator) when bearing oil
film breaks down;
2) bearing current due to dv/dt in common-mode voltages
when bearing provides a low-impedance path;
3) circulating bearing current due to magnetic flux resulting
from common-mode currents.
Paper IPCSD 00–016, presented at the 1999 Industry Applications Society
Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, October 3–7, and approved for publication in
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Drives
Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript submitted
for review June 1, 1998 and released for publication March 23, 2000.
The author was with GE Industrial Systems, Salem, VA 24153 USA. He is
now with GE Corporate Research and Development, Schenectady, NY 12309
USA (e-mail: f.wang@ieee.org).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0093-9994(00)07619-2.
0093–9994/00$10.00 © 2000 IEEE
Bearing damage and failures due to excessive bearing cur-
rents have been reported in PWM VSI drive applications. As
a result, extensive efforts have been applied to understand and
characterize the mechanisms of these PWM-generated bearing
currents [2]–[9]. Some prevention and mitigation schemes have
been proposed and studied. Usually, motor shaft voltages are
studied together with bearing currents because shaft voltages are
good indicators of potential bearing current problems. In certain
applications, shaft voltages can cause direct damage, e.g., sparks
in a hazardous environment, and are very undesirable. So far,
most of the work on motor shaft voltages and bearing currents
has been focused on low-voltage ( 600 V) drive motor systems,
since most PWM VSI drives in applications today are insu-
lated-gate-bipolar-transistor (IGBT)-based low-voltage drives.
As the voltage ratings of IGBTs increase, and with in-
troduction of other high-power fast-switching devices such
as the integrated gate commutated thyristor (IGCT), more
medium-voltage PWM VSI drives are being developed and
applied. Although they usually employ power converter
topologies and switching strategies different from those of
low-voltage inverters, the medium-voltage inverters also gen-
erate common-mode voltages and currents and can have very a
high dv/dt rate. Naturally, there are concerns of possible motor
shaft voltage and bearing current problems. So far, however,
very little work has been reported on the subject.
This paper presents actual test results on motor shaft voltages
and bearing currents in a medium-voltage PWM-VSI-based
motor drive system. Their relationships with inverter topology
and PWM switching patterns are explored. Conditions affecting
bearing currents such as grounding schemes are studied. Pos-
sible solutions to reduce or eliminate shaft voltages and bearing
currents in medium-voltage drive applications are investigated.
II. TEST SETUP
In the medium-voltage range (normally, 2300–6600 V),
there are many different converter bridge configurations of
PWM-VSI-based industrial drives. For given configurations,
they can also be IGBT, gate-turn-off thyristor (GTO), or IGCT
based. Commonly, these drives are multilevel, i.e., their output
voltages consists of several voltage levels, compared with the
usual two voltage levels in low-voltage drives. The main advan-
tages of multilevel configurations include maximizing device
voltage and power capability, improving inverter motor interface
through reduced harmonics, and lower voltage step sizes. For
a given voltage, lower common-mode voltages and, therefore,
WANG: MOTOR SHAFT VOLTAGES AND BEARING CURRENTS
Fig. 1. Neutral-point-clamped three-level voltage-source inverter.
Fig. 2. Illustration of shaft voltage and bearing current measurement.
lower level motor shaft voltages and bearing currents can usually
be expected from a multilevel inverter. More voltage levels
are obviously desirable from the motor perspective, but add to
the complexity of converter and control. The drive topology
chosen for this test is of a popular configuration: a three-level
neutral-point-clamped (NPC) VSI, as shown in Fig. 1. It is IGBT
based with a voltage rating of 2300 V. Although this is the only
drive tested, it is hoped that the method used and/or conclusions
drawn here would apply to other medium-voltage drive motor
systems.
The objective of the test is to characterize shaft voltages and
bearing currents in a medium-voltage PWM VSI drive system.
As noted earlier, medium-voltage motors usually have one of
their bearings insulated to avoid circulating bearing currents, so
our focus has been on the noncirculating-type bearing currents,
i.e., types 1) and 2) as identified in Section I. The motor used
is a 2000-hp 2300/4160-V induction motor whose windings can
be either or connected. Normally, the motor has one of its
bearings insulated from the stator frame. To facilitate bearing
current measurement, the second bearing was also insulated for
this test, as was done in some other studies [3]. The arrangement
is shown in Fig. 2. The shaft voltages were measured from the
shaft to the grounded motor frame, while the bearing currents
were measured through grounding leads of the bearing.
In addition to the motor shaft voltages and bearing currents,
two other important quantities, voltages at the drive dc-link mid-
point and the motor neutral point (when connected) were
also measured. By inspecting the inverter topology in Fig. 1,
the midpoint is actually the balance point of the drive system.
This NPC three-level inverter, like other PWM inverters, in gen-
1337
Fig. 3. Common-mode circuitry of the three-level PWM drive motor system.
erating a balanced three-phase positive-sequence (differential
mode) voltage, also inherently produces a characteristic zero-se-
quence (common mode) voltage. For any given load voltage
level at a given frequency, the load ABC phase voltages ,
, and (their waveforms) are determined with respect to
the drive midpoint 0 and can be decomposed into
(1)
where , , and are balanced positive-sequence
voltages that always sum to zero. is the equivalent
common-mode zero-sequence voltage source of the system and
can be determined through
(2)
Therefore, the drive motor connection can be electrically
represented by Fig. 3, where the motor is represented by a
balanced three-phase winding. With the midpoint grounded
through an impedance while the motor neutral is nominally
ungrounded, the midpoint potential to ground practically equals
the common-mode voltage generated by the PWM inverter.
As can be seen from Fig. 3, the motor neutral point potential
largely reflects how much common-mode voltage actually falls
on the motor. Since the motor common-mode voltage has been
recognized as the source of PWM-related shaft voltage and
bearing current problems, it is a critical quantity to characterize
when available.
When the motor neutral is inaccessible, an artificial neutral
point can be used to access the motor neutral potential. In the
test, the neutral point of a three-phase RC filter installed at the
motor terminal was used for this purpose.
The cabling between the drive and motor and the system
grounding also affect common-mode voltage distribution and
the common-mode current path. In the test, 5-kV nonshielded
three-phase cables were used. The grounding wire of the cable
and its sheath were grounded at both the drive and motor ends.
The drive itself has a single grounding point through the dc-link
midpoint grounding impedance. The motor was nominally iso-
lated electrically from ground with only its frame grounded.
Given the drive inverter circuit topology, the common-mode
voltage of the drive system depends on operating condi-
1338
Fig. 4. Space-vector diagram of three-level PWM modulator.
TABLE I
NOMINAL TEST CONDITIONS AND PARAMETERS
tions and switching strategy. During the test, the inverter was
operated as a PWM VSI. A three-level space-vector modulator
[11] was used. The switching frequency was 1500 Hz. The
motor control was either volts/hertz or field-oriented control.
With the modulator, the common-mode voltage has higher
amplitude at low frequency than at high frequency. As shown
in Fig. 4, in low-frequency operation, or low modulation index,
corresponding to the inner hexagon of the space-vector dia-
gram, each PWM switching cycle goes through origin ( )
or ( ), resulting in a peak common-mode voltage equal to
(positive link potential) or (negative link potential) based
on (2). For high-frequency operation corresponding to the outer
hexagons in Fig. 4, the maximum peaks for common-mode
voltage are 2/3 of the positive or negative link potential.
During the test, the focus was on the low-frequency region,
corresponding to the worst case scenario.
Table I summarizes some important parameters for the test.
The instruments for shaft voltage and bearing current measure-
ments include digital scopes and voltage and current probes.
III. TEST RESULTS
A. Shaft Voltages and Motor Neutral Voltages
The first important observation is the relation between the
shaft voltage and the motor neutral voltage. The motor shaft
voltage results from direct electrostatic (capacitive) coupling
from the stator winding common-mode voltage, i.e., motor
neutral voltage in this case. This is evident from the identical
shapes of shaft voltage and the corresponding motor neutral
voltage waveforms in Fig. 5. These waveforms corresponded
to the motor operating at 3 Hz, i.e., a modulation index equal to
0.05. Given that the PWM inverter has a dc-link voltage of 3500
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000
Fig. 5. Shaft voltage versus motor neutral voltage.
Fig. 6. Shaft voltage at 0.95 modulation index.
V and switches at 1500 Hz, the total system common voltage
should have a peak-to-peak voltage around 3500 V and a
frequency of 750 Hz. Referring to Fig. 3, since the drive dc-link
midpoint is impedance grounded, it can be expected that most
of the should fall on the motor neutral. It can be seen from
Fig. 5 that the motor neutral voltage has a peak-to-peak value
of 2500 V at a frequency of 750 Hz. It should be noted that, in
one 750-Hz cycle, there are actually 12 switching events. Some
of these switching events are not obvious in Fig. 5, because at
a very low modulation index level, the switches tend to stay in
0 states (see Fig. 4) most of the time. Again, it corresponds to
the worst scenario in terms of common-mode voltage level.
At a higher modulation index, the common-mode voltages
were observed as being lower. Fig. 6 shows the motor shaft
voltage waveform at 57 Hz (modulation index 0.95), with its
peak around 30 V, which is smaller compared with the peak in
Fig. 5. Notice the distinct three-level steps in this waveform.
B. Bearing Currents
Fig. 7 shows the waveform of bearing current due to the
bearing oil film breakdown. This measurement was again taken
WANG: MOTOR SHAFT VOLTAGES AND BEARING CURRENTS
Fig. 7. Discharge bearing current versus shaft voltage.
Fig. 8. Shaft voltage collapse as bearing discharge.
when the motor ran at 3 Hz. As observed by other investigators,
in low-voltage PWM VSI drives, the discharge bearing currents
are random in nature, and can have very high peak values and
decay very fast in an oscillatory manner. The current peak in
Fig. 7 is around 8 A. It is conceivable that this level of current
can be very detrimental to the bearing over a period of time.
Fig. 8 gives a more complete picture of the shaft voltage be-
havior when discharge bearing currents occur. It first quickly
went to zero and then reversed its polarity, apparently no longer
following the motor neutral voltage. In fact, this is a voltage
level shift phenomenon due to the bearing impedance change as
a result of discharge bearing currents, which was also observed
with two-level low-voltage drives [2], [3]. It is also worth noting
that this case corresponds to a low-impedance grounding at the
drive dc-link midpoint, leading to a higher motor neutral voltage
than the case of Fig. 5.
1339
Fig. 9. DV/DT bearing currents versus voltages.
Fig. 10. Noncirculating bearing current circuit mode.
Fig. 9 shows the bearing currents due to high . Clearly,
the currents are the result of IGBT switching. The peak values of
these capacitive currents are on the order of tens to hundreds of
milliamperes, much smaller than those of discharge currents. Of
course, they appear much more frequently, every time an IGBT
switches.
IV. PROBLEM MITIGATION
The above test results have shown that motor shaft voltages
and noncirculating bearing currents can be a problem in multi-
level medium-voltage PWM VSI drive applications. It can also
be generalized that, for the medium-voltage drive system, the in-
verter-generated common-mode voltage is the ultimate source
of the potential problems. The common-mode voltage on the
motor winding is the direct source. Its coupling to the rotor
causes shaft voltage, leading to possible bearing currents. The
mechanism is identical to that discovered in low-voltage drive
motor systems and, therefore, supports a model as in Fig. 10
[2], [4]. In this model, and represent bearings, is
the common-mode voltage on the motor stator winding, ,
, and are mutual capacitances between stator and frame,
stator and rotor, and rotor and frame, respectively, is the
drive dc-link midpoint grounding impedance, and is the op-
tional parallel grounding impedance at the motor terminal. This
model, together with the common-mode circuit model in Fig. 3,
1340 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000
Fig. 11. Grounding the motor neutral.
depict well the shaft voltage and bearing current phenomenon
in an NPC three-level PWM VSI drive systems.
Based on the mechanisms for generating shaft voltages and
bearing currents, there are four obvious general approaches in
solving the motor shaft voltage and bearing current problems.
A. Eliminate or Reduce System Common-Mode Voltage
Recognizing is a function of the modulator, conceivably,
the modulator can be designed to have no or small . For
example, the simple double-triangle modulator will generate
smaller than the space-vector modulator, but not enough to
eliminate the bearing current problem in the system. A more ex-
otic modulator may be possible, but probably at the expense of
increased switching losses and other system compromises [8],
[9]. A different inverter topology may also help.
B. Eliminate or Reduce Coupling from Motor Stator Winding
to Shaft
Increasing and/or reducing will lead to lower shaft
voltage. In low-voltage applications, motors with electrostatic
shields between the stator and rotor have been proposed to re-
duce the coupling capacitance between the stator winding and
the rotor close to zero and, therefore, effectively eliminate shaft
voltage and bearing currents [2]. This, of course, requires spe-
cial motors.
C. Eliminate Motor Shaft Voltage by Grounding the Shaft
Grounding the motor shaft directly zeros the shaft voltage and
showed in our test as being very effective in eliminating bearing
currents. The drawback to this approach may be the requirement
of the grounding brushes and the reliability. Grounding brushes
may be unacceptable in certain hazardous environments.
D. Eliminate or Reduce Motor Neutral Voltage by Redesigning
Common-Mode Circuitry
This approach has received the most attention in our testing
and subsequent discussions. Several variations of this approach
have been tried and discussed. Invariably, they all involve redis-
tributing through different zero-sequence circuit designs to
achieve a sufficiently low motor neutral voltage. Here are some
of the schemes.
1) Solidly Grounding the Motor Neutral: This showed
in the test as having effectively reduced shaft voltage and
bearing current. In the meantime, it shifted all to the
drive grounding impedance . Fig. 11 shows shaft voltage
and bearing current under this condition. The shaft voltage
no longer correlates with the motor neutral voltage, rather, it
is generated by the switching. Note that the common-mode
current through the motor neutral to ground can be fairly high.
The potential problems with this approach include: 1) impact
on drive and motor control and protection; 2) EMI noise due to
more common-mode voltage being shifted to inverter; and 3)
the requirement of a -connected motor.
2) Grounding the Motor Neutral Through an Impedance: A
properly chosen resistor or capacitor in coordination with the
drive grounding network may reduce motor neutral voltage to
a sufficiently low level. In general, it needs to be significantly
smaller than the drive dc-link midpoint grounding impedance. It
will have the same potential problems as solidly grounding the
motor neutral, although probably to a lesser extent.
3) Grounding Other Neutrals in the System: One approach
tried in testing is grounding the motor terminal RC filter neutral.
It did reduce the motor neutral voltage and shaft voltage, but
not low enough to eliminate bearing currents. The problem is
the zero-sequence impedance of these filters used in the test is
still too high compared with the drive grounding impedance. In
principle, the impedance can be made smaller to be effective.
The advantages of this approach include that it does not require
a -connected motor.
4) Increasing the Drive Grounding Impedance: When
changing drive dc-link midpoint grounding impedance from
low to high, then to ungrounded, the motor neutral voltage
changed from 1750-V peak (Fig. 8) to 1240-V peak (Fig. 5) to
1000-V peak. The shaft voltages and bearing currents decreased
accordingly. In principle, the drive grounding can be further
increased to reduce the motor neutral voltage. The drawbacks
are the increase of drive midpoint voltage and related issues.
Table II shows measurement results of bearing currents
under various grounding mitigation schemes. The general
trend agrees with our discussion above. Note that, even solidly
grounding the motor winding neutral cannot completely elim-
inate the motor shaft voltage and bearing current, although it
does reduce the current magnitude significantly. The residual
motor shaft voltage comes from the common-mode voltage
due to device switching transients, as seen in Fig. 11. There
have been proposals for eliminating PWM-VSI-generated
common-mode voltages through inverter or motor topology
modifications, as well as control modifications. However,
none of these schemes can be totally successful in eliminating
common-mode voltages due to switching transients.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented test results on motor shaft voltages
and bearing currents in a medium-voltage three-level NPC PWM
VSI drive system. It has shown that, in this type of system, the
noncirculating type of bearing currents can be a problem due to
inverter-generated common-mode voltage. This common-mode
voltage can be electrostatically coupled to the motor shaft,
WANG: MOTOR SHAFT VOLTAGES AND BEARING CURRENTS
TABLE II
RESULTS WITH VARIOUS BEARING CURRENTS REDUCTION SCHEMES
leading to bearing insulation breakdown and bearing currents.
Controlling common-mode voltage distribution, in particular,
on the motor neutral, is an effective way of controlling shaft
voltages and bearing currents in a medium-voltage system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank J. Sherbahn, J. Patton, P. Es-
pelage, I. Freeman, Ed Hartung, and R. Bedia of GE Industrial
Systems for their help and contribution to this work.
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Fei (Fred) Wang (S’85–M’91–SM’99) received the
B.S. degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an,
China, and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees from the Uni-
versity of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1982,
1985, and 1990, respectively, all in electrical engi-
neering.
He was a Research Scientist in the Electric Power
Laboratory, University of Southern California, from
1990 to 1992. He joined the GE Power Systems Engi-
neering Department, Schenectady, NY, as an Appli-
cation Engineer in 1992. From 1994 to 2000, he was
a Senior Development Engineer with GE Industrial Systems, Salem, VA. He
is currently with GE Corporate Research and Development, Schenectady, NY,
managing the Electrical Systems and Technologies Program at the GE China
Technology Center, Shanghai, China. His interests and responsibilities include
electronic and electromechanical energy conversion, control, quality and relia-
bility, and e-engineering.