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Abstract -- In high speed machines, the skin and proximity


effects cause significant increase of the total copper losses in
stator windings at the high frequency. The cause and behavior
of the eddy currents are studied at two extreme time moments.
The AC copper losses are divided into 3 components with
different sources. The dimensions of the conductors must be
carefully selected to minimize the stator AC copper losses. The
optimal strand thicknesses at 4 different frequencies are
investigated. The ratio between AC and DC resistances
calculated in finite element (FE) model is compared with the
results from the analytical method.

Index Terms-- AC copper losses, eddy current, finite
element method, form-wound windings, high speed machines,
proximity effect.
I. INTRODUCTION
HEN a conductor carrying alternating current of high
fundamental frequency, for example, in stator
windings of high speed machines, or the cross
section of the conductor is relatively large, such as a typical
stator winding in the large turbo generators, eddy currents
are induced by slot flux leakage, which redistributes the
current density over the cross section of the conductor
unevenly.
The skin depth is commonly used to evaluate the current
concentration on the conductor periphery. It is close-related
to frequency, conductivity of the conductor and magnetic
permeability of the conductor. For higher frequency, the
skin depth o is smaller, which means more current
concentration around the periphery.
Two types of slot flux leakages in electrical machines
are distinguished. The self flux leakage is caused by the
alternating current flowing in the conductors. The direction
of this flux is perpendicular to the teeth. The resulting eddy
current losses from this component are investigated in
analytical approaches in [1] and [2]. The self flux leakage
exists in each single conductor.
The external flux leakage refers to the leakage from the
air gap through the wedge as result of rotor movement. It
can also be called slot fringe leakage. The direction of the
external flux is in parallel with stator teeth. It only
influences the conductors located close to the air gap [3].
The eddy current losses caused from the external flux are
studied at the no-load condition [4].
In the high-power high speed machines, the form-wound
windings are commonly applied to meet the voltage and
current specification. The volumes of the high speed
machines are usually small, which results in less space for
cooling and thus tougher requirement for the cooling
system. Therefore, the lower electromagnetic losses are

u

This work was supported by the ABB Corporate Research Center.
The authors are with Corporate Research Center, ABB, SE 72178 Sweden.
(email: wenliang.chen@se.abb.com, yujing.liu@se.abb.com,
jahirul.islam@se.abb.com, dmitry.svechkarenko@se.abb.com).
strongly desirable. This can be achieved by using very thin
conductors or random wound wire in the stator windings.
The AC copper losses of the random wound windings are
studied in switch reluctance machine, surface mounted
permanent magnet synchronous machine and high speed
induction machine in [5], [6] and [7] respectively.
However, for the high voltage and high power electrical
machines, the form-wound winding provides more
preferable filling factor and insulation.
A time-stepping FE circuit model is developed to
analyze the eddy current and circulating current in the
form-wound multi-conductor windings [8]. The influence
of the machine design parameters, such as slip, frequency,
air gap length, wedge material and thickness on eddy
current losses are studied in. The radial position of stator
bars is concluded to be a very important design parameter
to decrease the stator AC copper losses. However, the study
is limited to a 50 Hz induction machine with a particular
strand thickness.
The main objective of this work is to study the eddy
current phenomena for a high speed machine with different
fundamental frequency by using time-stepping finite
element method. The study will provide the simulation
results of AC copper losses with different strand thickness
for different fundamental frequencies.
II. TECHNICAL WORK PREPARATION
DC copper losses are defined as the resistive losses in a
conductor when a direct current is applied. The DC copper
losses,
1_ cu dc
P , can be expressed as
2 2
1_
0 0
(1)
cu dc dc RMS RMS
c
l
P R I I
b h o
= =
where
dc
R is the DC resistance,
c
o is the conductor
conductivity, l is the length of the conductor,
0
b is the
strand width and
0
h is the strand thickness. The DC copper
losses are commonly referred to as copper losses for
random-wound-winding machines with 50 Hz (or 60 Hz) as
negligible skin and proximity effects.
The definition of AC copper losses was first introduced
in [1]. When an alternating current is present the effective
resistance of the conductor is increased. The total resistive
losses,
1_ cu ac
P , in the conductor can then be defined as [6]
0
2 2 0
1_
0
(2)
h
cu ac ac RMS
c
b l
P J dh R I
o
= =
}
where J is current density and
ac
R is equivalent resistance
of the conductor.
The ratio between the AC and DC copper losses can
then be expressed as
Strand-level Finite Element Model of Stator AC
Copper Losses in the High Speed Machines
Wenliang Chen, Yujing Liu, Jahirul Islam, Dmitry Svechkarenko

W
978-1-4673-0141-1/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE 475

2
,
2
,
, ,
. (3)
, ,
RMS ac k
RMS dc k
P R
I R
ac k ac k
P R
I R
dc k dc k
= =

The derived expressions only consider the active part of
the windings. In this analytical approach, the skin and
proximity effects in the end windings are disregarded.
A. Machine Specification
A 6.5 MW high speed induction motor is considered for
AC copper losses at high frequency. The specifications of
the machine are listed in Table I.

Table I. Machine parameter
Parameters Value
Output power 6.5 MW
Frequency 200 Hz
Supply voltage 6 kV
Number of poles 2
Stator slots 36
Rotor slots 28
Number of turns per coil 5
Number of parallel strands 4
Number of strands side by side 2


Fig. 1. Geometry of the half machine
B. Strand-Level FE Model
The high speed machine specified in Table I is studied
by using a 2D time-stepping FE model, built in the FE
program Flux. The 3-phase distributed windings are placed
in the stator slots. There are two layers in each slot which
consists of 5 turns each, with 4 parallel strands in each turn.
Two strands are placed side by side as shown in Fig. 2 (a).
A path is selected from slot bottom to the first conductor
for the analysis of the eddy currents in all the conductors,
referred as path A.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Numbering of the strands in a stator slot and path A.

One of the phase windings is modeled strand by strand
in the form of solid conductors, which allows the current
density variations to be observed. The individual conductor
represented as a rectangular in Fig. 2 is represented by a
solid conductor in the circuit model in Fig. 3. Conductor
number 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Fig. 2 are the same strand in one
coil. They are represented as solid conductor M1, M3, M3,
M5, M7 and M9 respectively in the electrical circuit model.
Conductor number 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 are the same
strand series-wounded in another coil. To model a whole
phase, 240 solid conductors are used in the circuit model.
The windings from the other two phase are modeled as
whole coils in the form of coil conductors, which current
density is assumed to be uniformly distributed with the
value equal to the average current density. All of the coils
in phase A and B are modeled as coil conductors:
SS1BP1p1, SS1AP1p1 and SS1AM1p1.


Fig. 3. Circuit model in FEM. The voltage source is 200 Hz sinusoidal.

The resistance and inductance in each parallel branch
represent the end winding part of the strand. Considering
the relatively low leakage flux density, the skin and
proximity effects in the end windings are neglected in this
study.
It is essential to assign the mesh elements in all of the
conductors in order to capture the current density
variations, and thus obtain accurate calculations of the eddy
current losses. The mesh elements of the conductors in one
stator slot are shown in Fig. 4. The skin depth for copper at
150C and 200 Hz is 5.75 mm, larger than conductor
thickness. The mesh element is then selected to be 30% of
the conductor thickness. The FE model contains 56500
mesh elements.


Fig. 4. Mesh elements in stator strand.
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III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The 2D FEM study is carried out on a 2-pole high speed
machine with 200 Hz fundamental frequency. The
necessary machine dimensions are listed in Table I.
A. Discussion of the Current Density and Flux Leakage
Two specific time moments are selected for more
detailed analysis: time moment A with the instant strand
main current being 0, and time moment B when the instant
strand main current reaches its peak value. The
corresponding current density distributions at these two
time moments in the stator windings are captured and
presented in Fig. 5.
At time moment A, as the strand main current reaches 0,
the non-zero current density in the strands is due to the
induced eddy current; For time moment B, as the strand
main current reaches maximum, the bottom conductors
have rather uniform distributed current density. Eddy
currents only exist in the lower conductors, which are near
the slot opening.
The current density in each conductor along the radial
distance from slot bottom to the slot opening (scaled from 0
to 1) is plotted at the two time moments in Fig. 6. The
uneven distribution of the current density in every single
conductor shows the existence of eddy current.

(a). Moment A (b). Moment B

Fig. 5 Curernt density in stator winding at two specific time moments.
(The stator strands are placed above the air gap)


Fig. 6. Current density in winding conductors

By subtracting the average current from the current
density shown in Fig. 6, the eddy current density in each
conductor is obtained. The graph in Fig. 7 shows how the
eddy current density varies with the distance from the slot
bottom to the slot opening. The maximum eddy current in
all strands is induced at the moment when the phase current
is 0. When the phase current reaches its maximum value,
the induced eddy currents are insignificant (except in the
conductors next to the slot opening where the eddy current
is induced by the air gap flux leakages). The strand main
current is of the same frequency as the eddy current. This
shows the phase shift between strand main currents and
eddy currents are approximate 90 electrical degrees.


Fig. 7. Eddy current density in winding conductors when the main current
is 0 and maximum respectively.

The equi-flux lines at these two moments are captured
and presented in Fig. 8. The scale is the same in the two
figures, 55 lines in total with flux value range from -0.73 to
-0.30 Weber.
In Fig. 8 (a), only in the stator wedge there are flux lines
which come from air gap. When the instant main current
equals to zero, there is no flux lines in the slot body but
small flux variation in the slot opening. At this moment the
slot flux leakage is only the radial flux leakage from the air
gap. On the other hand, the equi-flux lines are very dense
in Fig. 8 (b). Most of the lines are in the circumferential
direction. At this moment the slot flux leakage is mainly the
tangential flux leakage, together with small value of the
radial flux leakage.


(a). Moment A (a). Moment B
Fig. 8. Equi-flux lines in winding conductors when the main current is 0
and maximum respectively.

The slot flux leakages are decomposited into tangential
and radial directions, and analyzed versus the radial
distance from slot bottom to slot opening. Time moment A
and B are selected.
It is easy to note in Fig. 8 that the tangential flux exists
in all conductors while the radial flux only influences the
top conductors. In Fig. 9 (a), both radial and tangential flux
leakages have rather small values. The flux density
variations over a strand thickness increase linearly with the
radial distance to slot openings. However in (b), the
tangential flux is increasing linearly with the radial distance
from the slot bottom to the slot opening. The radial flux
decays fast in conductors further away from the slot
477

opening.


(a). Moment A


(b). Moment B
Fig. 9. The slot tangential and radial flux leakage when the main current
is 0 and maximum respectively.

The different characteristics of the radial and tangential
flux are caused by their different sources. Tangential flux is
the flux leakage produced by conductor currents. This is the
reason why the tangential flux is low at time moment A and
maximum at time moment B. The radial flux is the leakage
coming from the air gap flux. The conductors in slot bottom
are not covered by any radial flux leakage.
For most of the machine operating points, the slot
leakage contains both the radial and tangential flux.
Therefore, as the phase current reaches its lowest value,
that is no-load operation, the tangential flux leakage is
minimized. Majority of the slot leakage is then from the air
gap flux. The tangential flux in a stator slot under locked
rotor condition is much higher comparing to the nominal
operating point as the stator current is much higher than
rated current while the radial flux leakage becomes
negligible.

Fig. 10. Vector diagram of a single strand
L
u
Total leakage flux in the stator slot
E
eddy

The back electromotive force induced from
L
u
eddy
I
Eddy current induced from
L
u

According to Ampere's law, the induced flux from an
alternating current is in phase and proportional to the strand
main current. From Faraday's law, the induced back
electromotive force (EMF) is proportional to time
derivative of the flux. Consequently, the induced EMF
from the flux is lagging the main current and leakage flux
by 90 degrees. Due to winding inductance, the induced
eddy currents are slightly lagging the back EMF. Thus, in
stator windings, eddy current is lagging the main current
around 90 degrees. Fig. 10 illustrates the vector diagram of
the parameters explained above.
B. AC Copper Loss Components
The RMS value of the current together with DC
resistance bring the fundamental portion of the AC copper
losses. These losses are only affected by the temperature
and dimensions of the windings. For example, for the same
RMS value of the alternating current, Litz wires produce
higher DC copper losses considering the small cross section
area of copper.
Both the tangential and radial flux leakages contribute to
the generation of eddy currents in the stator windings. The
eddy current copper losses caused by the tangential flux
leakage produces the majority of the eddy current at loaded
conditions. And the number of conductors influenced by
the tangential flux leakage is also higher than by the radial
flux leakage. For strands close to the slot opening, the eddy
current loss contains two parts: losses caused by tangential
flux leakage and by radial flux leakage from the air gap.
Both are contributing to the generation of hot spots in the
stator windings, which requires a special attention in
cooling design [9].
Considering the windings with parallel branches, the
eddy current induced in one branch is different from the
neighboring branches as the flux leakages exposed into are
not equal. The difference between the individual branch
current and the average current of all branches is
circulating current. This circulating current increases the
total copper losses in stator windings.
The stator AC copper losses can then be expressed as
1_ 1_ 1_ 1_
(4)
T R
cu ac cu dc cu B cu B
P P P P = + +
where
1_
T
cu B
P and
1_
R
cu B
P are the eddy current losses
caused by the slot radial flux leakage from the air gap, the
slot tangential flux leakage from the main strand current,
circulating current respectively.
The strands in a slot of the example machine are studied
for the AC copper losses. All the conductors are divided
into leading and trailing groups, and numbered from the
slot opening to stator yoke, as shown in Fig. 2. The AC and
DC copper losses of each strand in the slot are presented in
Fig. 11. The AC copper losses increase in the first two
conductors closest to air gap increase drastically as the
result of the radial flux leakage. For the rest of the
conductors, the tangential flux leakage is the main cause of
the copper loss increase.
Due to circulating current among the 4 parallel strands,
the DC copper losses in each strand differ slightly.
It is also observed that more AC copper losses are
generated in the strands of the leading group than on the
trailing one. Because the rotation of the air gap flux, there
are asymmetry of the radial flux leakage between the
conductors in the two groups.
478



Fig. 11. AC and DC copper losses for individual conductors in stator slot.

C. Optimal Strand Thickness for Minimum AC Copper
Losses
For a given frequency, the conductor thickness is
preferablely to be of small value. However, small value of
conductor cross section area results in a high strand DC
resistance. The strand DC copper losses are consequently
increased. There must be an optimal conductor thickness in
which case the AC copper losses are minimized.
In this section, the study of AC copper loss for different
conductor thicknesses is presented. The slot dimensions are
kept the same as in the example machine. The RMS value
of the current fed in the stator windnigs and slip value in all
cases are kept the same so that the DC copper losses are in
the same level. The number of ampere turns are maintained
as the same value in order to keep the induced EMF the
same.
In the example machine, there are 4 parallel strands
wound together into the stator coil in 5 turns. In the study
performed here, the number of parallel strands varies from
2, 4, 6 to 8. Considering the insulation thickness in the
windings, the single strand thickness allowed in stator slot
is corresponding to 4.9 mm, 2.3 mm,1.43 mm and 1 mm. It
is worth to mention that an imaginary point 0.025mm
strand thickness is added to Figure-12, so that the copper
losses variation between 0 to 1mm can be predicted in
certain accuracy range. Strand thickness 0.025mm is so
small that the skin and proximity effects in strands are
negligible. AC copper losses equal to DC losses value.

Fig. 12. the Ratio between AC and DC resistance as function of single
strand thickness at 4 different frequencies with the constant total slot area.

The frequency dependency on AC copper losses is
investigated. Frequency is selected to be 100 Hz, 200 Hz,
400 Hz and 800 Hz. The voltage of the windings are
proportional to the supplied frequency.
The ratio between AC and DC copper resistance of the
stator windings is plotted as function of single strand
thickness in Fig. 12. Only the active part of the winding is
considered. It is observed that at 2.3 mm strand thickness,
the ratio of AC and DC copper losses at 400 Hz is 3 times
of the ratio at 100 Hz. For a given frequency, high AC
copper losses are produced in the thick strand. With the
same strand thickness, the AC copper losses increase
drasticly when the operating frequency is increased.
The total AC copper losses of the active part of the
stator windings in Fig. 13 are presented in percentage of the
machine input power. Having the same phase current, the
DC copper losses of all the cases are in the same level.
However, different operating frequencies cause different
level of input power. The total AC copper losses in
percentage of the input power are used for benchmarking
all the cases.


Fig. 13. AC copper losses in percentage of input power as function of
strand thickness and frequency with the constant total slot area.

At 200 Hz, the optimal strand thickness is 1.5mm. If the
strand thickness becomes thinner than the optimal
thickness, the AC copper losses become higher due to poor
filling factor. Huge number of strands requires more
insulation area, decreases effective copper area and causes
high DC resistance. If strand become thicker than the
optimum value, DC resistance keeps almost the same for
the constant slot area. The AC resistance increases due to
skin and proximity effects.
For a given requirement of AC copper losses (for
example, not higher than 1% of machine input power at
200 Hz), the applicable strand thickness is between 0.35 to
4 mm. This range is reduced to 0.05 and 3 mm for 800 Hz
operation. The applicable strand thickness larger than the
optimal value is preferable as the winding insulation work
is reduced.
Comparing all the cases with the same slot area, it is
obvious that the machine with the highest operating
frequency has the best efficiency from the stator AC copper
losses point of view.
479

IV. COMPARISON BETWEEN ANALYTICAL AND FEM RESULTS
In the analytical approach, a parameter called reduced
strand thickness [10] is defined as
0
0
(5)
c
b
h f
b
t o =
where b is the slot width. The ratio between the AC and
DC resistances of the
th
k conductor (counting from stator
back to slot opening) in a stator slot can be defined as [10]
,
,
sinh 2 sin 2 sinh sin
( 1)2 . (6)
cosh 2 cos 2 cosh cos
ac k
dc k
R
k k
R



+
= +
+

Equation (5) and (6) are applied for the studied machine.
The AC and DC resistance ratio for every single conductor
is calculated, and compared with the results calculated from
FEM in Fig. 14.


Fig. 14. The analytical, FEM calculated AC and DC copper loss ratio in
comparison with the corrected value.

The gradient of the AC and DC resistance in analytical
is higher than the FEM calculations. This difference can be
related to the parallel strands in the example machine. In
the analytical model [10], all the strands are connected in
series. Number of turns equals to the number of conductors.
The number of turns in the example machine is lower than
the number of conductors in the slot. The resulting back
EMF is lower which leads to lower eddy current in the
cross section of each conductor.
Due to the radial flux leakage from the air gap, the
increase in AC and DC resistance ratio is higher in FEM
than analytical value. Because in the analytical method, the
radial flux leakage from the air gap is disregarded.
V. CONCLUSION
A 2D time-stepping FE model is built to study the eddy
current losses in the form-wound stator windings of high
speed induction machine. The AC copper losses are studied
as function of strand thickness and frequency. For the same
slot area, the optimal strand thickness decreases for higher
frequency.
The induced back EMF in the strands is lagging the
tangential flux leakage by 90 degrees approximately.
The AC copper losses in a conductor consist of DC
copper losses, eddy copper losses from the tangential and
radial flux leakages. The tangential flux leakage induced by
the currents of the strands in the slots decreases linearly
from the slot opening to the slot bottom. As the radial flux
leakage is from main flux in the air gap, it decreases
exponentially from a given value at the slot opening to
almost zero towards the strands close in the slot bottom.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] A. B. Field, Eddy Current in Large Slot Wound Conductors, the 22nd
annual convention of the A.I.E.E., 1905
[2] R. E. Gilman, Eddy Current Losses in Armature Conductors, the 39th
annual convention of the A.I.E.E., White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.,
pp. 997-1056, June, 1920.
[3] A. S. Thomas, Z. Q. Zhu, G. W. Jewell, Proximity losses study in
high speed flux-switching permanent magnet machine, IEEE
transactions on magnetics, Vol. 45, NO. 10, October 2009.
[4] Thomas Spooner, No-Load Copper Eddy-Current Losses, Midwinter
Convention of AIEE, New York, Feb 8-11, 1926.
[5] Henry M. Hminen, Juha J. Pyhnen, Jussi Puranen, Minimizing
Skin Effect in Random Wound High Speed Machine Stator,
EUROCON, St. Petersburg, May 18-23 2009.
[6] Iwasaki S, Rajesh P. Feodhar, Yong Liu, Adam Pride, Z. Q. Zhu,
Jonathan James Bremner, Influence of PWM on the Proximity Loss
in Permanent-Magnet Brushless AC Machnes, IEEE Transactions on
Industry Applications , pp. 1359-1367, 2009.
[7] Patel B. Reddy, Z. Q. Zhu, Seok.Hee Han, T. M. Jahns, Strand-level
proximity losses in PM machines designed for high-speed operation.
International Conference on Electrical Machines, pp. 1170-1175,
Villamoura, 2008.
[8] Islam M. J, Arkkio A, Time-stepping finite-element analysis of eddy
currents in the form-wound stator winding of a cage induction motor
supplied from a sinusoidal voltage source, IET Electric Power
Applications, Volume 2, Issue 4, pp. 256265, July 2008.
[9] Islam, M.J.; Khang, H.V; Repo, A-K; Arkkio, A. 2010: Eddy-
current loss and temperature rise in the form-wound stator winding of
an inverter-fed cage induction motor, IEEE Transaction on
Magnetics, Volume 46, Issue 8, August 2010, pp. 34133416.
[10] Juha J. Pyhnen, Tapani Jokinen, Valeria Hrabovcova, Design of
Rotating Electrical Machines, Lappeenranta University of
Technology, pp. 256-266, Lappeenranta, 2008.
VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Wenliang Chen was born in 1986 (Shaanxi, China). She graduated from
the Royal Institute of Technology and received her M. Sc. degree in
Electrical Power Engineering in 2010. Since 2010 she is with ABB
Corporate Research (Sweden) as an Electrical Engineer. Her technical
interest includes electromagnetic field analysis and high speed machines.
Yujing Liu received B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1982,
1985, and 1988, respectively. He has worked as associate professor in the
area of electromagnetic computations, PM machine design, and other
micro- and special machines. Since 1996, he has worked in ABB
Corporate Research, Vsters, Sweden. In addition to develop
computational tools for machine analysis and design, he has made many
investigations and studies on complex electromagnetic and thermal
problems. His current interests include analysis, computations and
simulations of electrical machines and drive systems. He works as a Senior
Principal Scientist of ABB group since 2008.
Jahirul Islam was born in Faridpur, Bangladesh, in 1978. He received the
B.Sc. (Tech) degree from Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2002. He received the M.Sc.
(Tech) and D.Sc. (Tech) degrees from Helsinki University of Technology
(TKK), Finland in 2005 and 2010, respectively. He has been working in
ABB Corporate Research, Vsters, Sweden since 2009. His research
interest involves different machine topologies and numerical modeling,
analysis and understands the phenomena of electrical machines.
Dmitry Svechkarenko was born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1980. He
received his M.Sc. and D.Sc. (Tech) degrees in Electrical Engineering
from the Royal Institute of Technology in 2004 and 2010 respectively.
Since 2010, he is with ABB Corporate Research, Vsters. His research
aims at the development a cost-effective direct-driven generator in the
multi megawatt class for future offshore wind farms.

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