Microsoft Word - ETASR_V12_N1_pp8223-8227 Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 12, No. 1, 2022, 8223-8227 8223 www.etasr.com Minh et al.: A Novel Approach for the Modeling of Electromagnetic Forces in Air-Gap Shunt Reactors A Novel Approach for the Modeling of Electromagnetic Forces in Air-Gap Shunt Reactors Hung Bui Duc School of Electrical Engineering Hanoi University of Science and Technology Vietnam hung.buiduc@hust.edu.vn Tu Pham Minh School of Electrical Engineering Hanoi University of Science and Technology Vietnam tu.phaminh@hust.edu.vn Tuan Phung Anh School of Electrical Engineering Hanoi University of Science and Technology Vietnam tuanphunganh1@hust.edu.vn Vuong Dang Quoc School of Electrical Engineering Hanoi University of Science and Technology Hanoi, Vietnam vuong.dangquoc@hust.edu.vn Abstract-Shunt reactors are usually used in electrical systems to imbibe reactive powers created by capacitive powers on the lines when the system is operating on low or no loads. Moreover, they are also used to balance reactive powers and maintain the stability of a specified voltage. In general, the air gaps of a magnetic circuit shunt reactor are arranged along the iron core to reduce the influence of fringing and leakage fluxes. Therefore, non-magnetic materials made of ceramics or marbles are often used in air gaps to separate the iron core packets. The direction of the fringing flux is perpendicular to the laminations, so the core packets of the shunt reactor are generally made from radially laminated silicon steels. Due to the alternating electromagnetic field through the core, a periodically altered electromagnetic force is produced between the core packets, tending to compress the ceramic spacers. This electromagnetic force causes vibration and noise in the core. In this research, a finite element approach based on the Maxwell stress tensor was developed to compute the magnetic flux density and the electromagnetic forces appearing in a shunt reactor. Keywords-shunt reactor; air gaps; magnetic flux density; electromagnetic force; Maxwell stress tensor I. INTRODUCTION A Shunt Reactor (SR) is an important component widely used in power transmission systems to improve stability and efficiency. Parasitic capacitance occurs in a line when the system is working under low or no load. Especially for a long line, its value is very large and leads to a voltage increase, causing an overvoltage at its end. Hence, to maintain voltage stability according to the regulations and balance the reactive power in electrical systems, the SR is proposed to absorb the excess reactive power created by the line capacitance [1-4]. In addition, in order to reduce the magnetic flux and to avoid the saturation of the magnetic circuit, air gaps are added in the iron core of the SR to increase the reluctance values. On the other hand, fringing fluxes appear around the air gaps [6-9], increasing the winding inductance and causing nonuniform magnetic fields in the iron core packets of the SR. Nonmagnetic materials such as ceramic or marble are often used in air gaps to separate the iron core packets. The fringing flux departs and reenters the lamination perpendicularly, so the core packets of the SR are generally made from radially laminated silicon steels. Because of the alternating electromagnetic field through the core, a periodically altering electromagnetic force is produced between the core packets, tending to compress the ceramic spacers. The force on the core packets is a Maxwell force that causes vibration and noise. Maxwell forces are acting at twice the power frequency due to the sinusoidal flux passing through the windings at the power frequency. Many researchers have investigated transient situations and magnetic fields in SR or calculated the air-gap reluctance and - inductance of winding for magnetic circuits [6-12]. In [13], a method was introduced to calculate the leakage fields in air- core reactors using a 3D reluctance network. Testing problems of gapped-core reactors were presented in [14, 15]. Some researchers investigated the temperature field distribution [16, 17]. In this research, a Finite Element Method (FEM) based on Maxwell stress tensor theory [18] was developed for an iron core gapped SR to compute the magnetic flux density and the electromagnetic force on the core packets. These fields are the inherent reason for the vibration and noise and tend to compress the ceramic spacers. II. METHODOLOGY A. The Structure of a Gapped-Core Shunt Reactor The structure of an SR is illustrated in Figure 1. The mid limb with the non-magnetic gaps is enclosed by the winding. The winding is also enclosed by a frame of core steel providing the return path for the magnetic field. Three single-phase SRs are connected to provide a three-phase transmission line. A Corresponding author: Hung Bui Duc Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 12, No. 1, 2022, 8223-8227 8224 www.etasr.com Minh et al.: A Novel Approach for the Modeling of Electromagnetic Forces in Air-Gap Shunt Reactors three-phase SR can also be used, having 3 or 5 limbed cores. Figure 1(b) shows a three-limbed core SR having a strong magnetic coupling between the 3 phases. A 5-limbed core is shown in Figure 1(c), where the phases are magnetically independent due to the enclosing magnetic frame formed by the two yokes and the two unwound side-limbs. The gapped core limbs are built of core packets. The core packet type is further classified into parallel and radially laminated core types by the core packet laminating methods. The parallel laminated core type has steel plates in parallel in the same direction as the power transformer core, and the radially laminated core type is constructed as a cylindrical core packet by laminating steel plates in the radial direction arranged in a wedge-shaped pattern [14]. The core packet is filled with epoxy resin and molded into one solid unit. Fig. 1. Modeling of the shunt reactor: (a) single-phase, (b) 3-phase 3- limbed core, (c) 3-phase 5-limbed core [6]. The vibration in the SRs is usually higher than in transformers as a result of the magnetic forces between the consecutive core packets. Therefore, the core is designed to eliminate excessive vibrations. The non-magnetic gaps are established by using cylindrical spacers to take the large magnetic forces appearing between the discs in a gapped core SR. The height of the distance spacer is equal to the height of the air gap. The core packets are stacked and cemented together to form a core limb column. Dimensional stability and core tightness can be fixed by an epoxy impregnated polyester material and a fiberglass cloth of a few millimeters between the last limb packet and the top/bottom yoke. The yokes and side limbs, normally with a rectangular cross-section, make up the magnetic circuit. B. Parameters of the Shunt Reactor A single-phase SR of 35MVAr (500/√3kV and 50Hz) was considered to calculate the electromagnetic force in the core packets. A simple model of this single-phase SR is shown in Figure 2. The volume of the air gaps was determined by the equations describing the magnetic circuit model. It should be noted that this volume depends on the main parameters of the shunt reactor, i.e. reactive power, magnetic inductance, winding inductance, frequency, and energy storage in the winding space air gap. Iron materials have usually a high magnetic permeability (µ=µr.µ0) compared to the air gap permeability (µ0). Therefore, the reluctance of the magnetic core is very small, compared to the reluctance of the air gaps, and can be neglected in the equivalent magnetic circuit. In addition, the winding resistance is normally very small compared to the inductance and can be neglected when defining the parameters of the electric circuits. From the relationship between the Magnetomotive Force (MMF), magnetic flux, and reluctances of the magnetic circuit, the magnetic flux density on the core can be determined via the reactive power and the volume of the air gap as: �� � � �� .�. � (1) where Bm, Vg, and µ0 are the maximum flux density, the air gap volume, and air permeability respectively. The obtained results of the SR of 35MVAr are shown in Table I [10] Fig. 2. Model of the shunt reactor. TABLE I. SR RESULTS BY THE ANALYTIC METHOD Parameters Notation Results Reactive power Q (MVAr) 35 Rated voltage U (kV) 500/√3 Rated current I (A) 121,24 Totalinductance L (H) 7.5788 Core dimension Dc (mm) 673 Height of core Hc (mm) 1758 Total air gap length lg (mm) 363 Turn number N (turn) 2166 Width of winding Ww (mm) 248 Height of winding Hw (mm) 1488 C. Calculation of the Electromagnetic Force In the gapped core of the SR, vibrations can be very high due to the magnetic forces between the consecutive core packets. Thus, the ceramic spacers and any other gap materials should tolerate these forces without any significant shrinkage. The electromagnetic force acting on the core packets can be computed by either the Maxwell stress tensor approach or the virtual work method [20]. This force is given by: � � ∆�∆� � �� ��� ��, (2) where Ac is the cross-sectional area, and ∆x is the translation of a body. The surface force density is therefore given by: F� � ��� � �� ��� (N/m2) (3) The higher the operating flux density, the higher the attractive force is. Therefore, the operation flux density is typically lower than the value used sometimes in power transformers. According to (2), it is necessary to increase the total volumic air gap to reduce the magnetic flux density. The force between the core packets can be calculated by (3) if the flux distribution is uniform. However, as the flux distribution in the SR is non-uniform, the finite element approach is generally applied with the virtual work principles. The magnetic flux density can be determined through the MMF and the air gap parameters as: Hc Dc Hw Ww Hy Dy Wy Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 12, No. 1, 2022, 8223-8227 8225 www.etasr.com Minh et al.: A Novel Approach for the Modeling of Electromagnetic Forces in Air-Gap Shunt Reactors � � ��� � � !."#� (4) The surface force density can also be calculated by: F� = � � � ! �"� #� (N/m 2 ) (5) The Maxwell stress tensor approach is widely used for computing electromagnetic forces. When ignoring the magnetostriction, the distribution of the magnetic forces in the core packets can be defined as: �$ = − � � H.H ∇� (6) On the material surface, Fv can be written in terms of normal and tangential components as: �$ � − ��)H*� + H,�- ∇� � − �� .H*� + �/���0∇� � − �� )H*� ∇� − B,� ∇2- (7) since 3��� � −42, where reluctivity is 2 � ��. The force density at the surface can be defined as: �5 � − �� )H*� )� − �- − B,� )2 − 2--6 (8) where n is the unit normal vector to the surface. In the gapped- core SR, the force density between two packets can be determined by (8), which when the fringing effect is negligible (Ht=0) becomes: �5 � �� )B,� )2 − 2--6 (9) The reluctivity 2 of the core material in (9) is negligible. Thus, the magnitude of the force per unit area perpendicular to the surface can be expressed as: �7 � �� ��� (N/m2) (10) This force is a function of the square of the flux density. The higher the operating flux density, the higher the forces of attraction are. D. Modeling of the Shunt Reactor via a Finite Element Approach Maxwell's equations and the constitutive laws of the problem are written as [10-13]: ∇ × 9 � − :�:* (11) ∇ • B � 0 (12) ∇ × < � = + :>:* (13) B � ∇ × A (14) The value of the magnetic flux density B corresponding to the magnetic field intensity H is: � � �< (15) The magnetization forces were calculated by applying the Maxwell stress tensor locally. The Maxwell stress tensor for magnetic fields is a 3×3 matrix and has a unit of N/m 2 : @ � A�B