A Seminar Report On

BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR (BLDC)

Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING
SUBMITTED BY

M.VIJAY PAVAN KUMAR 16MH5A0231

Under the guidance of

Mr.U.P. KUMAR CHATURVEDULA, M.Tech(Ph.d)

AssociateProfessor

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

ADITYA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

(Affiliated to JNTUK, Approved by A.I.C.T.E, New Delhi)

SURAMPALEM, EAST GODAVARI, AP, INDIA
2016-2019
 Brushless DC MOTOR(BLDC)

Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors are one of the motor types rapidly gaining
popularity. BLDC motorsare used in industries such as Appliances, Automotive, Aerospace,
Consumer, Medical, Industrial AutomationEquipment and Instrumentation. As the name
implies, BLDC motors do not use brushes for commutation; instead, they are electronically
commutated. BLDC motors have many advantages over brushed DC motors and induction
motors. A few of these are:

• Better speed versus torque characteristics

• High dynamic response
• High efficiency
• Long operating life
• Noiseless operation
• Higher speed ranges

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATING PRINCIPLE

BLDC motors are a type of synchronous motor. This means the magnetic field
generated by the stator andthe magnetic field generated by the rotor rotate at the same
frequency. BLDC motors do not experience the“slip” that is normally seen in induction
motors.

BLDC motors come in single-phase, 2-phase and 3-phase configurations.

Corresponding to its type, the stator has the same number of windings. Out of these, 3-phase
motors are the most popular and widely used. This application note focuses on 3-phase
motors.

Stator
The stator of a BLDC motor consists of stacked steel laminations with windings
placed in the slots that areaxially cut along the inner periphery (as shown in Figure 3).
Traditionally, the stator resembles that of aninduction motor; however, the windings are
distributed in a different manner. Most BLDC motors have threestator windings connected in
star fashion. Each of these windings are constructed with numerous coils interconnected to
form a winding. One or more coils are placed in the slots and they are interconnected to make
a winding. Each of these windings are distributed over the stator periphery to form an even
numbers of poles. There are two types of stator windings variants: trapezoidal and sinusoidal
motors.
This differentiation is made on the basis of the interconnection of coils in the stator
windings to give the different types of back Electromotive Force (EMF).
As their names indicate, the trapezoidal motor gives a back EMF in trapezoidal
fashion and the sinusoidal motor’s back EMF is sinusoidal, as shown in Figure 1 and Figure
2. In addition to the back EMF, the phase Current also has trapezoidal and sinusoidal
variations in the respective types of motor. This makes the torque output by a sinusoidal
motor smoother than that of a trapezoidal motor. However, this comes with an extra cost, as
the sinusoidal motors take extra winding interconnections because of the coils distribution on
the stator periphery, thereby increasing the copper intake by the stator windings.

Depending upon the control power supply capability, the motor with the correct
voltage rating of the stator can be chosen. Forty-eight volts, or less voltage rated motors are
used in automotive, robotics, small armmovements and soon. Motors with 100 volts, or
higher ratings, are used in appliances, automation and in industrial applications.
Rotor
The rotor is made of permanent magnet and can vary from two to eight pole pairs with
alternate North (N) andSouth (S) poles. Based on the required magnetic field density in the
rotor, the proper magnetic material is chosen to makethe rotor. Ferrite magnets are
traditionally used to make permanent magnets. As the technology advances, rareearth alloy
magnets are gaining popularity. The ferrite magnets are less expensive but they have the
disadvantageof low flux density for a given volume. In contrast, the alloy material has high
magnetic density per volume and enables the rotor to compress further for the same torque.

Also, these alloy magnets improve the size-to-weight ratio and give higher torque for
the same size motor using ferrite magnets. Neodymium (Nd), Samarium Cobalt (SmCo) and
the alloy of Neodymium, Ferrite and Boron (NdFeB) are some examples of rare earth alloy
magnets. Continuous research is going on to improve the flux density to compress the rotor
further.
Figure 4 shows cross sections of different arrangements of magnets in a rotor.
Theory of Operation
Each commutation sequence has one of the windings energized to positive power
(current enters into the winding), the second winding is negative (current exits the winding)
and the third is in a non-energized condition. Torque is produced because of the interaction
between the magnetic field generated by the stator coils and the permanent magnets. Ideally,
the peak torque occurs when these two fields are at 90° to each other and falls off as the fields
move together. In order to keep the motor running, the magnetic field produced by the
windings should shift position, as the rotor moves to catch up with the stator field. What is
known as “Six-Step Commutation” defines the sequence of energizing the windings. See the
“Commutation Sequence” section for detailed information and an example on six-step
commutation

Sensor less Control of BLDC Motors

Until now we have seen commutation based on the rotor position given by the Hall
sensor. BLDC motors can be commutated by monitoring the back EMF signals instead of the
Hall sensors. The relationship between the Hall sensors and back EMF, with respect to the
phase voltage, is shown in Figure 7. As we have seen in earlier sections, every commutation
sequence has one of the windings energized positive, the second negative and the third left
open. As shown in Figure 7, the Hall sensor signal changes the state when the voltage
polarity of back EMF crosses from a positive to negative or from negative to positive. In
ideal cases, this happens on zero-crossing of back EMF, but practically, there will be a delay
due to the winding characteristics. This delay should be compensated by the microcontroller.
Figure 10 shows a block diagram for sensor less control of a BLDC motor.

Another aspect to be considered is very low speeds. Because back EMF is

proportional to the speed of rotation, at a very low speed, the back EMF would be at a very
low amplitude to detect zero-crossing. The motor has to be started in open loop, from
standstill and when sufficient back EMF is built to detect the zero-cross point, the control
should be shifted to the back EMF sensing. The minimum speed at which back EMF can be
sensed is calculated from the back EMF constant of the motor.
With this method of commutation, the Hall sensors can be eliminated and in some
motors, the magnets for Hall sensors also can be eliminated. This simplifies the motor
construction and reduces the cost as well. This is advantageous if the motor is operating in
dusty or oily environments, where occasional cleaning is required in order for the Hall
sensors to sense properly. The same thing applies if the motor is mounted in a less accessible
location.

TYPICAL BLDC MOTOR APPLICATIONS:

BLDC motors find applications in every segment of the market. Automotive,
appliance, industrial controls, automation, aviation and so on, have applications for BLDC
motors. Out of these, we can categorize the type of BLDC motor control into three major
types:

• Constant load
• Varying loads
• Positioning applications