Bearing currents and their relationship to PWM drives

This paper examines AC motor shaft voltages and the resulting bearing currents when operated under pulse width modulation (PWM) voltage source inverters. The paper reviews the mechanical and electrical characteristics of the bearings and motor in relation to shaft voltages and bearing currents. A brief review of previous work is addressed, including the system model and experimental results. The theory of electric discharge machining (EDM) is presented, including component calculations of the system elements. The effect of system elements on shaft voltages and bearing currents are evaluated experimentally and the results compared to theory. A design calculation is proposed that provides the relative potential for EDM. Finally, the paper presents quantitative results on one solution to the shaft voltage and bearing current problem.