Start up performance of load-commutated inverter fed synchronous machine drives

Load-commutated inverter (LCI) synchronous machine drives are common in the high power range. However, the starting performance of these systems is a concern since load-commutation cannot occur at arbitrarily low speeds. This paper compares three different starting strategies including one apparently neglected method-normal load commutation. In particular, it is shown that, depending on system parameters, it may be possible to start the system with no special provision for start up. A method to determine whether a given system can be started using load commutation is presented.>