Experimental assessment of medium-voltage Induction motor performance under multilevel PWM inverter supply

Inverter-fed Induction motor performance is known to be noticeably affected by the supply voltage waveform. Nevertheless, the prediction of how supply voltage harmonics impact on motor operation in terms of losses, noise and thermal behavior is still a problem that can be hardly approached through simulations and analysis, therefore experimental data constitute an important source for information. In this paper the test results of two high-power induction-motor drives are presented showing their performance under different voltage waveforms. Among the other things, it is shown how low-frequency distortions in the supply voltage may have considerably stronger impacts on motor behavior than PWM harmonics, although the overall THD under PWM supply is higher.