Precise Evaluation of Repetitive Transient Overvoltages in Motor Windings in Wide-Bandgap Drive Systems

The increasing interest in employing wide-bandgap (WBG) drive systems has brought about very high power, high-frequency inverters enjoying switching frequencies up to hundreds of kilohertz. However, voltage surges with steep fronts, caused by turning semiconductor switches on/off in inverters, travel through the cable and are reflected at interfaces due to impedance mismatches, giving rise to overvoltages at motor terminals and in motor windings. The phenomena typically associated with these repetitive overvoltages are partial discharges and heating in the insulation system, both of which contribute to insulation system degradation and may lead to premature failures. In this article, taking the mentioned challenges into account, the repetitive transient overvoltage phenomenon in WBG drive systems is evaluated at motor terminals and in motor windings by implementing a precise multiconductor transmission line (MCTL) model in the time domain considering skin and proximity effects. In this regard, first, a finite element method (FEM) analysis is conducted in COMSOL Multiphysics to calculate parasitic elements of the motor; next, the vector fitting approach is employed to properly account for the frequency dependency of calculated elements, and, finally, the model is developed in EMTP-RV to assess the transient overvoltages at motor terminals and in motor windings. As shown, the harshest situation occurs in turns closer to motor terminals and/or turns closer to the neutral point depending on whether the neutral point is grounded or floating, how different phases are connected, and how motor phases are excited by pulse width modulation (PWM) voltages