IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 21, NO.

5, SEPTEMBER 2006

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A Passive EMI Filter for Eliminating Both Bearing Current and Ground Leakage Current From an Inverter-Driven Motor
Hirofumi Akagi, Fellow, IEEE, and Shunsuke Tamura
AbstractThis paper presents a practical approach to eliminating both bearing current and ground leakage current from an inverter-driven motor rated at 400 V and 3.7 kW. When the shaft voltage with respect to the motor frame exceeds the dielectric breakdown voltage of thin lubricating grease lms in two metal bearings at the drive and non-drive ends, an electrical discharge machining (EDM) current ows through the bearings. A passive electromagnetic interference (EMI) lter can keep the shaft voltage in check, as a result of having eliminated high-frequency common-mode voltage from the motor terminals. Hence, no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, so that no EDM current ows in the bearings. Experimental results verify the viability and effectiveness of the passive EMI lter designed in this paper. Index TermsBearing current, common-mode voltage, electromagnetic interference (EMI), ground leakage current, inverters, motor drives, shaft voltage.

I. INTRODUCTION

N INVERTER-driven motor suffers from the so-called bearing current owing through two metal bearings at the drive and non-drive ends [1][18]. The bearing current may cause bearing failures in the worst case. There are three compoor displacement nents in the bearing current. They are: a) bearing current [2], b) electrical discharge machining (EDM) bearing current [2], and c) bearing current circulating along current results from steep the motor shaft [4]. The rst changes in the common-mode voltage appearing at the motor terminals. The second EDM current stems from the dielectric breakdown of thin lubricating grease lms formed in extremely narrow gaps between each bearing ball and the inner/outer bearing races. Both bearing currents ow from the stator windings to the motor frame (the stator case) through the two motor bearings. The third bearing current is produced when both motor-shaft ends are connected to the motor frame by low-impedance paths, together with carbon or silver brushes [4]. However, this bearing current does not fall into the scope of this paper because the tested motor has no electric contact between the motor shaft and the motor frame except for the two bearings.

Manuscript received June 28, 2005; revised November 29, 2005. Recommended by Associate Editor P. Tenti. H. Akagi is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552 Japan. (e-mail: akagi@ee.titech.ac.jp). S. Tamura is with the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Tokyo 100-8560, Japan. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2006.880239

current is small enough to be neglected, In general, the whereas the EDM current is a destructive instantaneous high discharge current that leads to bearing failures. Therefore, the EDM current should be eliminated from the inverter-driven motor. Existing solutions to the EDM current are as follows: to use an electrostatic-shielded induction motor, instead of a conventional induction motor [2], [5]; to install a shaft-grounding brush on the inverter-driven motor [12]; to insulate the two bearings at the drive and non-drive ends from the motor frame, or to use the so-called ceramic bearings, instead of conventional metal bearings [12]; to connect common-mode lters [8], [19], or to install active and/or passive components for cancellation of common-mode voltage [9], [11]. This paper deals with an approach to eliminating both bearing current and ground leakage current from a 400-V 3.7-kW induction motor driven by a three-level diode-clamped pulsewidth modulation (PWM) inverter. The high-frequency common-mode voltage generated by the PWM inverter induces a shaft voltage between the rotor and the motor frame. It was experimentally observed that an EDM bearing current with a peak value of 1 A ows through the drive-end bearing of the motor, when no electromagnetic interference (EMI) lter is connected. This current may cause uting and pitting that can be considered as a part of the same phenomena at a different scale, thus resulting in shortening the life of the bearings. The authors have proposed a passive EMI lter that does require access to the ungrounded motor neutral point [20], [21]. This circuit conguration is prominent and unique in that the three-phase stator windings are used as a part of the passive EMI lter. This makes the lter smaller in size, and more effective in ltering than other circuit congurations without access to the motor neutral point. The EMI lter can keep both shaft voltage and ground leakage current in check, as a result of having eliminated high-frequency common-mode voltage from the motor terminals. Hence, no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, so that no EDM current ows in the bearings. Experimental waveforms of the bearing current, obtained from the inverter-driven motor rated at 400 V and 3.7 kW, verify the viability and effectiveness of the passive EMI lter. II. EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM A. System Conguration Fig. 1 shows the circuit conguration of an experimental system. It consists of a three-level diode-clamped PWM inverter

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Fig. 1. Passive EMI lter with access to the ungrounded motor neutral point, and its experimental system.

TABLE I SPECIFICATIONS OF THE 76-mH COMMON-MODE INDUCTOR

[22][24] with a switching frequency of 8 kHz, a four-pole induction motor rated at 400 V and 3.7 kW, and a passive EMI lter designed in this paper. The EMI lter needs to be installed as close as possible to the ac output terminals of the inverter. Here, the EMI lter and the motor are connected through a three-phase unshielded motor cable with a length of two meters. The EMI lter consists of a common-mode lter and a smallreduction lter. The common-mode lter consists sized that is connected between the of a common-mode inductor inverter and the motor, and a resistor that is connected between the ungrounded motor neutral point and the mid-point of . two split dc capacitors presents an inductance The common-mode inductor value as large as 76 mH to common-mode voltage and current, whereas it exhibits an inductance value as small as about 1 mH to differential-mode voltage and current. The common-mode inductor designed in this paper is characterized by the use of a soft magnetic material based on nano-scale crystalline (Finemet) with a ux density of saturation as high as 1.1 T in a torroidal core. Table I summarizes the specications of the common-mode inductor used in this experiment. The previous paper [20] contains details about how to assign the values of the passive components in the common-mode lter with access to the ungrounded motor neutral point. The design procedure described in [20] is applicable to Fig. 1. However, this paper deals with the 400-V 3.7-kW induction motor driven by a three-level diode-clamped inverter with a switching frequency of 8 kHz, while the previous paper [20] dealt with the 200-V 3.7-kW induction motor driven by a classical two-level

Fig. 2. 76-mH common-mode inductor (upper right) and the three 0.2-mH differential-mode inductors (lower), compared with a 3.5-in oppy disk.

inverter with a carrier frequency of 15 kHz. No essential difference exists in common-mode lter design between the two inverter-driven motors. reduction lter consists of three 0.2-mH differThe , and three Wye-connected capacitors ential-mode inductors , as shown in Fig. 1. Each inductor with an amorphous core is placed is available on the market. A damping resistor . The neutral point of the three across the series inductor is connected to the dc-link mid-point , 2-nF capacitors thus making a slight contribution to mitigating a high-frequency common-mode voltage appearing at the motor terminals [19]. value of 3,700 V s When a voltage change with a high occurs at every switching, the parallel-connected inductor and resistor act as a resistor. Combination of the resistor and the capacitor forms a rst-order low-pass lter with a corner frequency of 320 kHz, thus resulting in a signicant reduction of value. the Fig. 2 shows a photograph of the 76-mH common-mode inand the three 0.2-mH differential-mode inductors ductor that are used in the experiments reported here. B. Structure of the Motor Used in Experiment Fig. 3 illustrates the physical construction of the motor that was tested for the purpose of observing the waveforms of the [6]. Insulated rings isolate the two ball bearing current bearings at the drive and non-drive ends from the motor frame.

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Fig. 3. Motor structure for observing the waveform of i .

Fig. 5. Three inverter ac voltages with respect to the inverter dc-link mid-point, and the resulting common-mode voltage. Here, the inverter output frequency is 10 Hz.

Fig. 4. Measured common-mode voltages (peak values) of the general-purpose 400-V three-level diode-clamped inverter for the switching frequency and the triple inverter output frequency.

A two-inch-long lead is available to short one isolated outer bearing race to the motor frame. This stimulates normal operation, and provides a mechanism for observing and measuring . A rubber mat for electric isolation is inserted between the motor and the oor. This enables correct measurement of the ground leakage current . No load is connected to the motor in the following experiments. As shown in Fig. 1, the motor frame is directly connected to the system ground with a single unshielded conductor with a length of two meters. No electric connection is made between the inverter frame and the system ground, thus resulting in isolating the inverter frame. This circuit conguration makes no leakage current ow through the inverter heat sink [21], so that no mutual interference occurs between the inverter frame and the motor frame. C. Common-Mode Voltage Produced by the Inverter Fig. 4 shows two frequency components in the commonmode voltage produced by the inverter as a function of inverter frequency. The rst is the switching-frequency (8 kHz) component, while the second component pertains to the triple inverter output frequency. The peak value of the measured switching frequency component is observed to be 370 V at an inverter output frequency of 5 Hz. The 76-mH common-mode inductor is designed to have a maximum ux density of 0.8 T at 5 Hz. The PWM control of the three-level inverter used in this experiment is based on space-vector modulation. The common-mode voltage waveform depends strongly on modulation methods and operating points. When a conventional sine-triangle modulation without third-harmonic injection is applied to the three-level inverter, the common-mode voltage can be signicantly reduced in the low-frequency region. However, the inverter pays the penalty of producing a pulse voltage with an extremely narrow width.

Fig. 6. Three inverter ac voltages with respect to the inverter dc-link mid-point, and the resulting common-mode voltage. Here, the inverter output frequency is 40 Hz.

The common-mode voltage with the triple inverter frequency , but across the in Fig. 4 is applied, not across the inductor , because the impedance of the capacitor is much capacitor higher than that of the inductor in a frequency range of 180 Hz. However, the common-mode inductor should be designed appropriately so as not to magnetically saturate in the low-frequency region. Figs. 5 and 6 show experimental waveforms of the three inverter ac voltages with respect to the dc-link mid-point , and . The the common-mode voltage produced by the inverter, inverter is operated at 10 Hz in Fig. 5, and at 40 Hz in Fig. 6. is 320 V in Fig. 5, while it is 200 V in The peak value of in Fig. 5 is much larger Fig. 6. Moreover, the rms value of than that in Fig. 6. III. A COMMON-MODE CIRCUIT EQUIVALENT TO THE INVERTER-DRIVEN MOTOR A. Parasitic Capacitors to be Considered Fig. 7 shows a common-mode circuit equivalent to the inverter-driven motor when no EMI lter is connected between the inverter and the motor [2][14]. Combination of measurements and calculations explained in the following subsections enables to determine the capacitance value of each parasitic capacitor in Fig. 7 for the 400-V 3.7-kW induction motor used

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Fig. 9. Measured common-mode impedance characteristics of the tested motor between the motor shaft and the motor frame.

Fig. 7. Equivalent circuit of the inverter-driven motor when no EMI lter is installed.

impedance around a switching frequency of 8 kHz in Figs. 8 and 9 can be regarded as capacitive reactance with capacitance 3 600 pF and 1 300 pF, respectively. values of Fig. 7 yields the following relations: (1) (2) It is reasonable to neglect from (1) and (2) because is much smaller than the others. This electrical meaning would be to open the path between the point at the Stator windings and the point at the Rotor in Fig. 7. Thus, invoking the approximation makes the two equations simple as follows: (3) (4) Equation (3) leads to 3 600 pF. Although the capacitance is considered to be smaller than that of , value of would not be eliminated from (4). C. Capacitance Values of , and

Fig. 8. Measured common-mode impedance characteristics of the tested motor between the three power lines and the motor frame.

here. Note that the measurements were carried out with the 2-in long lead disconnected from Fig. 3. is the common-mode voltage appearing at In Fig. 7, the motor terminals. The four parasitic capacitors are as folis the stator windings to motor frame capacitance, lows; is the stator winding to the rotor capacitance, is the is the equivarotor to the motor frame capacitance, and lent capacitance of the lubricating grease lms existing between each bearing ball and the inner/outer bearing races. Moreover, represents the equivalent capacitance of the two insulated rings. Switch SW represents the non-linear behavior of dielectric breakdown in the grease lms. It is turned on when the shaft is greater than the dielectric-breakdown voltage, voltage and it remains turned off when the shaft voltage is below this voltage. When the motor is at a standstill, the switch SW can be considered to be turned on because a few bearing balls always make mechanical contact with the inner and outer bearing races. B. Capacitance Value of Fig. 8 shows the common-mode impedance characteristics between the stator windings and the motor frame. Fig. 9 shows the common-mode impedance characteristics between the motor shaft and the motor frame.1 Note that the motor was at a standstill during these measurements. Common-mode
1A linear power amplier rated at dc 1 MHz, 75 V and 5.6 A was used for these measurements. The common-mode impedance between the stator and the frame means the impedance between the three-phase stator terminals connected together and the motor frame.

The capacitance value of depends strongly on rotor speed, grease lm, temperature, mechanical load, etc. [6]. The meawas carried out as folsurement for evaluating the value of lows: The unloaded motor was rotated at 1 600 rpm via an inverter. When the rotor attained this speed, the inverter was disconnected from the motor. While the rotor speed gradually decreased with the passage of time, the capacitance value between the shaft (the inner bearing race) and the outer bearing race, was measured by an meter. The rotor speed was simultaneously measured by a speed sensor. However, it was impossible to measure the capacitance value in a range of 0 to 250 rpm, because some bearing balls made mechanical contact with the inner and outer bearing races. This capacitance value represents (5) When the rotor speed is higher than 300 rpm, the bearings act as because thin lubricating grease lms establishes insulation between each bearing ball and the inner/outer bearing races. is divided by and . Fig. 10 Thus, the shaft voltage shows experimental waveforms of the shaft-to-frame voltage

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Fig. 10. Experimental waveforms of output frequency of 10 Hz in Fig. 1.

and

at an inverter

Fig. 11. Measured and calculated values of C , C speed.

and C

against rotor

, the voltage of the outer race with respect to the frame, , and the voltage of the inner race with respect to the outer (equal to the voltage across ), when the rerace, duction lter and the common-mode lter are connected. Fig. 10 with respect to is nearly equal implies that a ratio of to 4.4. This leads to (6) The set of (4)(6) enables one to calculate the capacitance , , and . Fig. 11 plots the calculated values of and results against motor speed. The capacitance values of are constant to be 93 pF and 1,200 pF, decreases as the rotor whereas the capacitance value of speed increases. The reason for the speed dependency of is that rotating the rotor shaft supported by the two bearings signicantly helps to form thin lubricating grease lms in extremely narrow gaps between each bearing ball and the inner/outer bearing races, and that increasing the rotor speed makes the formed lms more stable and uniform.2 D. Capacitance Value of The capacitance value of can be obtained by measuring with respect a ratio of the motor common-mode voltage to the shaft voltage , because the ratio is related to and . Fig. 12 shows experimental waveforms and when the reduction lter and the of common-mode lter are connected. Here, the inverter was operated at an output frequency of 10 Hz. The waveform of includes the 150-Hz 50 3 component produced by the 10 3 component produced by rectier and the 30-Hz the inverter. Although the high-frequency components are elim, the 150-Hz and 30-Hz components cannot inated from be eliminated by the common-mode lter. The waveforms of and give

, Fig. 12. Experimental waveforms of the motor common-mode voltage v and the shaft voltage v at an inverter output frequency of 10 Hz in Fig. 1.

IV. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE BEARING CURRENT A. Current Loops of the Bearing Current and the Ground Leakage Current The equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 7 can be used for identifying the bearing current and the ground leakage current. When no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, the switch SW can be thought to remain in the off state. Under this condition, the common-mode voltage produced by the inverter, acts as a driving force to form the following three current loops: current loop I: stator windings frame ground wire ; stator windings current loop II: frame ground wire ; current loop III: stator windings rotor shaft ground wire . These three current loops ow through the ground wire, and therefore their sum corresponds to the ground leakage current. Among the three, current loop I is the most dominant, because is much larger than the others. the capacitance value of bearing current Note that current loop III is just the . owing through When dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, the is much smaller switch SW is turned on in Fig. 7. Since , acts as a driving force, thus forming the fourth than current loop. rotor shaft current loop IV: frame A destructive high pulse current ows in current loop IV as a . result of having discharged the electric charge stored in This is the EDM bearing current circulating inside the motor. It is interesting to note that no EDM bearing current ows in

Combination of the above ratio and the already-calculated , , and yields 64 pF. values of
2The

thickness of the lms is usually in a range of 0.05 to 0.2 m.

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Fig. 13. Experimental waveforms when no lter is connected. (a) Switching frequency-based time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a). (c) Time-expanded waveforms of the line-to-ground and line-to-line voltages at the inverter ac terminals.

the ground wire. In other words, the EDM bearing current is independent of the ground leakage current. B. Existing and New Solutions to Eliminate the Bearing Current From the Inverter-Driven Motor Fig. 7 clearly differentiates the three existing solutions to eliminating the bearing current from an inverter-driven motor, based on their respective principle of manifestation. The rst solution uses the electrostatic-shielded (or the Faraday Shield) in the induction motor that is capable of achieving electrical isolation between the stator and the rotor [2], [5]. This special motor structure makes a capacitance value extremely small. This means that the Stator windings of is disconnected from the Rotor in Fig. 7. Thus, no voltage . appears across The second solution installs a shaft-grounding brush on a conventional induction motor [12]. This forms a short circuit across in Fig. 7. As a result, no electric charge is stored in , so that no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms. The third solution insulates the two bearings at the drive and non-drive ends from the motor frame, or uses the so-called ceramic bearings, instead of conventional metal bearings [12]. Thus, no current ows in current loops III and IV. These three existing solutions produce no effect on reducing the most dom, although inant ground leakage current owing through they can eliminate the bearing current from the inverter-driven motor. The solution dealt with in this paper is based on a simple idea that the proposed passive EMI lter can eliminate the commonmode voltage from the motor terminals. This means that

no voltage source exists in Fig. 7, that is, current ows in Fig. 7.

0. Thus, no

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AT AN INVERTER OUTPUT FREQUENCY OF 10 Hz The three-level inverter with a switching frequency of 8 kHz was operated at an output frequency of 10 Hz under the voltsper-hertz control mode. The 2-in-long lead was connected between the outer bearing race and the motor frame to observe the waveform of . Neither load nor auxiliary equipment was connected to the rotor shaft of the 400-V, 3.7-kW, four-pole inducand the motor commontion motor. The -phase voltage was observed with respect to the system mode voltage ground , and the shaft voltage was measured with respect to the motor frame. A. When No EMI Filter is Connected Fig. 13 shows experimental waveforms when no lter is connected between the inverter and the motor. Note that the , appearing at the motor termicommon-mode voltage nals, reaches 320 V, and it is equal to the common-mode voltage .3 The shaft voltage in Fig. 13(a) produced by the inverter, is at zero volts except for a short period. This waveform means that the dielectric breakdown of lubricating grease lms occurs in the bearings shown in Fig. 3. The breakdown causes a bearing current with a peak value of 1 A to ow. This is, not a bearing current, but an EDM bearing current as a result
3The waveform of in Fig. 5 is slightly different from that of in Fig. 13. The reason is that the waveform of in Fig. 5 was observed with in Fig. 13 was observed respect to the dc-link mid-point , while that of with respect to the system ground .

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Fig. 14. Experimental waveforms when only the dv=dt reduction lter is connected. (a) Switching frequency-based time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a). (c) Time-expanded waveforms of the line-to-ground and line-to-line voltages at the output terminals of the dv=dt reduction lter.

Fig. 15. Experimental waveforms when only the common-mode inductor L is connected. (a) Switching frequency-based time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a). (c) Time-expanded waveforms of the line-to-ground and line-to-line voltages at the output terminals of the common-mode inductor.

of having discharged the electric charge stored in . The and in peak value of reaches 0.5 A. The waveforms of Fig. 13(b) reveal the following.

The bearing current , in which the EDM current is much current, is independent of more dominant than the the ground leakage current .

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Fig. 16. Experimental waveforms when only the common-mode lter with access to the ungrounded motor neutral point is connected. (a) Switching frequencybased time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a). (c) Time-expanded waveforms of the line-to-ground and line-to-line voltages at the output terminals of the common-mode inductor.

The EDM current does not ow through the ground wire, but circulates inside the motor. These conclusions agree with those derived from the equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 7. B. When Only the Reduction Filter is Connected

voltage ringing with a frequency of 0.8 MHz is superimposed and as a result of a resonant circuit on the waveforms of formed between the common-mode inductor and the parasitic capacitance of the motor. D. When Only the Common-Mode Filter is Connected Fig. 16 shows experimental waveforms when the common, , and the motor neutral line mode lter consisting of is connected. The common-mode lter can eliminate high-frequency common-mode components from the motor terminals. As a result, no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, . The peak value of and a voltage always appears as is about 1 V. No EDM current ows in the bearings. However, a bearing current with a peak of 48 mA ows as . Note that this bearing current is not the EDM current, but a current. current is small, and it does not cause any However, this damage to the bearings at the drive and non-drive ends. E. When the Passive EMI Filter Consisting of Both Reduction and Common-Mode Filters are Connected Fig. 17 shows experimental waveforms obtained from the reconguration shown in Fig. 1 that includes both the duction lter and the common-mode lter. These waveforms are almost the same as those in Fig. 16 except for the waveforms of , , and . Comparing the waveforms of and between Figs. 16(b) and 17(b), one can conclude that the reduction lter helps in reducing the peak currents of and , as expected. The total power dissipated in was measured to be 6.6 W (all three-phases combined) and is less than 0.2% of the motor rating of 3.7 kW. The total power dissipated in was 0.037 W, and is small enough to be neglected.

Fig. 14 shows experimental waveforms when only the reduction lter is connected at the ac output of the inverter. It is clear from the waveform of Fig. 14(c) that the reduction values of and from 3,700 V s lter makes the to 250 V s. This helps in reducing the electrical stress across the motor insulation. However, the shaft voltage in Fig. 14(a) is still at zero volts except for a short period, like that in Fig. 13(a). Again, an EDM current with a peak value of 1 A ows as when the dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms. This observation suggests that the reduction lter cannot eliminate the EDM current from the inverter-driven motor. C. When Only the Common-Mode Inductor is Connected

Fig. 15 shows experimental waveforms when only the 76-mH is connected between the inverter common-mode inductor 0 in Fig. 1. The shaft voltage and the motor. This means still exhibits a considerable zero-volt period with an EDM current owing as . The peak value of this current is 0.7 A. The common-mode inductor used alone cannot eliminate the EDM current from the inverter-driven motor. in Fig. 15 The peak value of the ground leakage current is reduced from 0.47 A to 0.2 A, compared to that in Fig. 13. values of and in Fig. 15 is The reason is that the reduced to about one-fth its value shown in Fig. 13. However,

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Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms when the passive EMI lter consisting of both dv=dt reduction and common-mode lters are connected. (a) Switching frequency-based time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a). (c) Time-expanded waveforms of the line-to-ground and line-to-line voltages at the output terminals of the passive EMI lter.

TABLE II GROUND LEAKAGE CURRENTS, BEARING CURRENTS AND dv=dt VALUES

Table II summarizes the experimental results obtained on using the various EMI-lter congurations. The common-mode lter with access to the ungrounded motor neutral point plays an essential role, not only in reducing both peak and rms values of , but also in eliminating the dielectric breakdown of the lubricating grease lms from the bearings at the drive and non-drive ends. When the common-mode lter is connected, no current with a peak value EDM current ows although a reduction lter is effective in of 48 mA ows as . The current from 48 mA in Fig. 16 to 28 mA in reducing the Fig. 17. VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AT AN INVERTER FREQUENCY OF 40 Hz When no lter is connected, the shaft voltage termined by the inverter common-mode voltage is deand the

and . Fig. 4 shows that the the parallel combination of deswitching-frequency (8-kHz) component included in creases from 370 to 90 V as the inverter output frequency increases from 10 to 60 Hz. This tendency also exists in the peak , as shown in Figs. 5 and 6, and indicates that less value of frequent dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms as the motor speed gets higher because the speed dependency on produces little effect on the parallel combination of and . Note that a capacitance value of 1,200 pF) is much 210 470 pF). larger than that of Fig. 18 shows experimental waveforms when the inverter was operated at 40 Hz. Here, no lter is connected between the inverter and the motor. As expected, no dielectric breakdown occurs in the grease lms, and a shaft voltage is always present. bearing curNo EDM bearing current ows although a rent ows as , with a peak value of 170 mA in Fig. 18(b). However, the peak current is much larger than 48 mA in Fig. 16 reducand 28 mA in Fig. 17. This means that not only the tion lter but also the common-mode lter makes a signicant bearing current. contribution to reducing the VII. CONCLUSION This paper has proposed a passive EMI lter intended for eliminating both bearing current and ground leakage current from an inverter-driven motor rated at 400 V and 3.7 kW. A common-mode equivalent circuit is also proposed and its validity has been veried via experimental observations. Contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows.

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Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms when no lter is connected, where the inverter output frequency is 40 Hz. (a) Switching frequency-based time scale. (b) Time-expanded waveforms of (a).

The EDM bearing current that may seriously damage the bearings at the drive and non-drive ends circulates inside the motor, and does not ow in the ground wire. In other words, the EDM bearing current is independent of the ground leakage current. reduction lter cannot eliminate the EDM bearing A current from the inverter-driven motor, although it can rebearing current. duce the The passive EMI lter is viable and effective in eliminating bearing currents, as well as the ground the EDM and leakage current, from the inverter-driven motor. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. T. J. Kume and Dr. M. M. Swamy, Yaskawa Electric America, for their valuable discussions and English language editing. Moreover, the authors appreciate the useful comments and suggestions given by one of the reviewers of this paper. REFERENCES
[1] M. J. Costello, Shaft voltages and rotating machinery, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 419426, Mar./Apr. 1993.

[2] J. M. Erdman, R. J. Kerkman, D. W. Schlegel, and G. L. Skibiniski, Effect of PWM inverters on ac motor bearing currents and shaft voltages, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 250259, Mar./Apr. 1996. [3] S. Chen, T. A. Lipo, and D. Fitzgerald, Source of induction motor bearing currents caused by PWM inverters, IEEE Trans. Energy. Conv., vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 2531, Mar. 1996. [4] , Modeling of motor bearing currents in PWM inverter drives, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 13651370, Nov./Dec. 1996. [5] D. Busse, J. M. Erdman, R. J. Kerkman, D. W. Schlegel, and G. L. Skibiniski, Bearing currents and their relationship to PWM drives, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 243252, Mar. 1997. [6] D. Busse, R. J. Kerkman, D. W. Schlegel, and G. L. Skibinski, Characteristics of shaft voltage and bearing currents, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 2132, Nov./Dec. 1997. [7] S. Chen and T. A. Lipo, Circulating type motor bearing current in inverter drives, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 3238, Jul./Aug. 1998. [8] P. T. Finlason, Output lters for PWM drives with induction motors, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 4652, Jan./Feb. 1998. [9] S. Ogasawara, H. Ayano, and H. Akagi, An active circuit for cancellation of common-mode voltage generated by a PWM inverter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 835841, Sep. 1998. [10] S. Bhattacharya, L. Resta, D. M. Divan, and D. W. Novotny, Experimental comparison of motor bearing currents with PWM hard- and soft-switched voltage-source inverters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 552562, May 1999. [11] A. Julian, G. Oriti, and T. Lipo, Elimination of common-mode voltage in three-phase sinusoidal power converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 982989, Sep. 1999. [12] D. Macdonald and W. Gray, PWM drive related bearing failures, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 4147, Jul./Aug. 1999. [13] P. J. Link, Minimizing electric bearing currents in ASD systems, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 5566, Jul./Aug. 1999. [14] G. L. Skibinski, R. J. Kerkman, and D. W. Schlegel, EMI emissions of modern PWM ac drives, IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Mag., vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 4781, Nov./Dec. 1999. [15] F. Wang, Motor shaft voltages and bearing currents and their reduction in multilevel medium-voltage PWM voltage-source-inverter drive applications, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 13361341, Sep./Oct. 2000. [16] A. Kempski, R. Strzelecki, R. Smolenski, and Z. Fedyczak, Bearing current path and pulse rate in PWM-inverter-fed induction motor, in Proc. IEEE PESC, 2001, pp. 20252030. [17] D. Hyypio, Mitigation of bearing electro-erosion of inverter-fed motors through passive common-mode voltage suppression, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 576583, Mar./Apr. 2005. [18] A. Muetze, A. Binder, H. Vogel, and J. Hering, Experimental evaluation of the endangerment of ball bearings due to inverter-induced bearing currents, in Proc. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, Oct. 2004, pp. 19891995. [19] H. Akagi, H. Hasegawa, and T. Doumoto, Design and performance of a passive EMI lter for use with a voltage-source PWM inverter having sinusoidal output voltage and zero common-mode voltage, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 10691076, Jul. 2004. [20] H. Akagi and T. Doumoto, An approach to eliminating high-frequency shaft voltage and leakage current from an inverter-driven motor, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 11621169, Jul./Aug. 2004. [21] , A passive EMI lter for preventing high-frequency leakage current from owing through the inverter heat sink of an adjustable-speed motor drive system, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 12151223, Sep./Oct. 2005. [22] A. Nabae, I. Takahashi, and H. Akagi, A new neutral-point-clamped PWM inverter, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 518523, Sep./Oct. 1981. [23] R. Teichmann and S. Bernet, Three-level topologies for low-voltage power converters in drives, traction and utility applications, in Proc. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, 2003, pp. 160167. [24] H. P. Krug, T. Kume, and M. Swamy, Neutral-point clamped threelevel general-purpose inverterfeatures, benets and applications, in Proc. IEEE PESC, 2004, pp. 323328.

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AKAGI AND TAMURA: PASSIVE EMI FILTER

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Hirofumi Akagi (M87SM94F96) was born in Okayama, Japan, in 1951. He received the B.S. degree from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan, in 1974, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976 and 1979, respectively, all in electrical engineering. In 1979, he joined the Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan, as an Assistant and then Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. In 1987, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Cambridge, for ten months. From 1991 to 1999, he was a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan. From March to August 1996, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then M.I.T. Since January 2000, he has been a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers, including 66 IEEE TRANSACTIONS papers and an invited IEEE Proceedings paper. He has made presentations many times as a Keynote or Invited Speaker internationally. His research interests include power conversion systems, ac motor drives, high-frequency resonant-inverters for induction heating and corona discharge treatment processes, and utility applications of power electronics such as active lters for power conditioning, self-commutated BTB systems, and FACTS devices. Dr. Akagi received 13 IEEE prize paper awards (including two IEEE IAS TRANSACTIONS prize paper awards in 1991 and in 2004 and two IEEE PELS TRANSACTIONS prize paper awards in 1999 and in 2003), nine IEEE IAS Committee prize paper awards, the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award in 2001, and the IEEE IAS Outstanding Achievement Award in 2004. He was elected as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Industry Applications and Power Electronics Societies for 19981999.

Shunsuke Tamura was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1979. He received the B. S. degree from the Musashi Institute of Technology, Tokyo, in 2002, and the M. S. degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2005, both in electrical engineering. Since 2005, he has been working for the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

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