Space harmonics in unified electrical-machine theory

Prof. J. L. Willems
Indexing terms: Machine theory, Differential equations, Harmonics

Abstract
The paper deals with the applicability of unified machine theory to electrical machines where space harmonics
can not be neglected. It is shown that there exists cases where a linear transformation can be determined to
transform the set of time-dependent linear differential equations for a machine at constant speed into a set
of linear time-invariant differential equations, even if space harmonics are taken into consideration. A
criterion for applicability is presented that involves the number of phases, the number of harmonics and the
order of the harmonics that have to be considered.

Introduction

A basic assumption necessary for the validity of unified

machine theory1 is that each phase on stator and rotor
produces a sinusoidal space distribution of current density
and that, moreover, the flux is a sinusoidal function of space.
An important consequence of this hypothesis is that the rotorstator mutual inductances are sinusoidal functions of the
machine angle, and hence of time for machines running at
constant speed. This sinusoidal dependence is fundamental
for the validity of the linear transformation that reduces the
set of time-varying differential equations describing the
electrical machine into a set of time-invariant differential
equations.
In this paper, an attempt is made to generalise unified
machine theory to include the effect of space harmonics to
some extent. Therefore the linear-system approach to unified
machine analysis, as developed in an earlier paper,2 is very
useful. Indeed, this approach leads to a straightforward
derivation of a linear transformation that reduces the set of
time-varying differential equations of the electrical machine
with space harmonics into a set of time-invariant ones. The
number of space harmonics that can be taken into consideration depends on the number of phases of the nonsalient part
of the machine. It is also pointed out that the stationary
behaviour of a polyphase machine at the stator (or rotor)
terminals even holds for some configurations where space
harmonics are considered; this result is rather surprising,
since, in sinusoidal steady state, for example, the space
harmonics clearly produce harmonics in the rotor (or stator)
currents and voltages.

that M only contains a 3rd harmonic; the effect of further

harmonics is discussed later.
The differential equations of the machine can be written
by considering a network with time-dependent inductances

0)
In this equation, u and i are the column vectors of the voltage
and currents
= [us\ us2--v

smur\ur2

,]'

= [h\is2 W ' r l ' r 2 ',]'

having m + n components, with isk and irk the currents in the

fcih stator and rotor coil, usk and urk the voltages across the
terminals of these coils. The matrix R is the diagonal matrix
of the coil resistances
R =

(2)

with lm the identity matrix of order m, Rs the resistance of any

stator coil and Rr the diagonal matrix
/? r =diag (Rrl,. .., Rrn)
where Rrk is the resistance of the Arth rotor coil. The matrix
M(t) is the inductance matrix
M

VMSS M , , l

(3)

where
= M'

Mathematical model

Consider a machine without a commutator, with a

symmetrical m-phase stator and an -phase rotor; it is not
assumed that the M-phase windings on the rotor are symmetric (in induction machines, the roles of stator and rotor
should be reversed). The rotor-rotor and the stator-stator
self and mutual inductances are independent of the rotor
position, since the uniform airgap corresponds to a smooth
magnetic structure. The mutual inductance between a rotor
phase and a stator phase varies with the rotor position. In
most applications, this dependence.is assumed to be sinusoidal ; however, in this paper, space harmonics are taken into
consideration with respect to the airgap flux. A mutual
inductance between a rotor winding and a stator phase is
hence a periodic function of the angular position 6 of the
rotor; the period is 2TT if the angle 6 is expressed in electrical
degrees (we only consider 2-pole machines in the sequel). In
most cases, this periodic function is odd; i.e.
M(0) = - M ( - 6)
so that it only contains odd harmonics. Let us first assume
Paper 6499 P,firstreceived 5th April and in revised form 16th June

1971
Prof. Willems was previously with the Division of Engineering & Applied
Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., USA, and is now with
the Engineering School, University of Gent, Gent, Belgium
1408

and
M,.r = M'rr

are symmetrical matrices containing the self and mutual

inductance of stator coils and rotor coils, respectively, and
Msr = M'rs

is the matrix of the mutual inductances between stator and

rotor coils.
The matrix
L
M, L
M2

M2..
M,..
L. . .

(4)

is a constant matrix (with some negative offdiagonal entries).

It is at the same time symmetric and circulant;2 i.e. the
rows can be obtained by circular permutuation. The (A:+l)th
row is obtained from the kth row by shifting all entries one
step to the right and by putting the last entry of the kth row
in the first column of the (k + l)th row. All entries in Ms, on
lines parallel to the main diagonal or the inverse diagonal are
equal.
Let a.k denote the angle between the axis of the kth rotor
coil and the first rotor coil. Using the assumption that the
PROC. IEE, Vol. 118, No. 10, OCTOBER 1971

stator-rotor mutual inductances consist of a first and a third

harmonic, the element on the kth row and pth column of the
matrix Msr is
2{P -

MXk cos i v (xk

1)77

+ M3k cos 3 i 6 -

OLU

2(P -

1)77

and hence
Msr = M{NxPx

+ M3N3P3

(5)

where M{ and M3 are the constant n x n diagonal matrices,*

M{ = diag ( M n , M 1 2 , . . . , MXn)
M3 = diag (M 31 , M 3 2 , . . ., M3n)
N{ and N3 are the constant x 2 matrices
cos

OL\

cos 3a! sin 3<x{

cos 3a2 sin 3a2

sin aj

cos a2 sin a2
'3

.cosart sina n .

cos 3aM sin 3a.

and Pi and P 3 are the time-dependent 2 x ra matrices

6A
P. =

a
sinV
~
cos30

cos fa
[6
fa
sin ( 6
\

\) . . .
)
l7T
\
) ...
mJ
Z77\

cos3(0

^n

sin 30

27T
27T

fa 6
cos {
cos { 6
(a
sin -Id
V
Cn

22 m
m

- O^n
O^n'
y

2 m

O^O
y
m
J

2(m 1)77^

)...cos3^0-

~f n

277\

sin 3 ( 0

fn

2(m 1)771

) . . . sin 3 -{6 -

The rotor-inductance matrix is a symmetric constant n x n

matrix containing the constant self and mutual inductances
of the rotor coils. If the speed is constant (6 = cot), the
differential equations of the machine are linear but nonstationary owing to the time-dependent coefficients. The aim
of unified machine theory is to introduce a linear transformation on the system variables to obtain a set of time-invariant
differential equations. However, the transformation matrix
that is used in classical unified machine theory does not work
here in most cases, because of the 3rd-harmonic terms in some
coefficients. In this paper, the possibility of obtaining a linear
transformation to achieve time invariance with space harmonics is discussed.
A particular result is available in the literature3 concerning
the applicability of classical unified machine theory to
machines with space harmonics. Suppose that the rotor and
the stator have symmetrical 3-phase windings. Then the terms
in Msr involving the 3rd-harmonic terms assume the form
1 1 1
1 1 1
1 1 1

M3 cos 3d

vns = T(6)v

where is, vs, ir and vr are all the vectors of the currents and
voltages on stator and rotor, and ins, vns, inr and vnr are the
transformed quantities. The transformation matrix is
1

1
cos

cos (*-T)
27r

ffaa J\
sin
in

sin

Transformation matrix
Consider the linear nonstationary system

4(0 = A(t)x(t) + B(t)u{t)

y(t) = C(t)x(t)

(6)

with input u(t), output y(t) and state x(t). It was shown in
Reference 2 that an interesting result can be obtained if the
system matrix A(t) can be written as

A(t) = exp (-Ft)A0 exp (+ Ft)

(7)

for some constant matrices Ao and F. Then the change of

variables4
z(0 = exp (Ft)x(t)

(8)

transforms the system equation (eqn. 6) into the set of equations

i(0 = (Ao + F)x(t) + exp (Ft)B(t)u(t) |

^(0 = C(0 exp (-Ft)z(t)
)
Since (/40 + F) is a constant matrix, this set of equations can
be solved using standard matrix exponential techniques or
Laplace-transform methods. A theorem has been proved in
Reference 2 that states conditions for eqn. 7 to hold:
Theorem 1: Suppose that A(t) is diagonalisable. Then A(t)
can be written in the form indicated by eqn. 7 if, and only if,
(a) the eigenvalues of A(t) are constant
(b) there exists a modal matrix 5(0 of A(t) so that S(t)S(t)~l
is a constant matrix.
The proof of this theorem and some important consequences
are discussed in Reference 2. Instead of the change of variables (eqn. 8), one can also use the linear transformation

Introduce the change of variables

/ = T0)is

differential equations of the machine at constant speed is

transformed into a set of four time-invariant differential
equations and two time-varying ones. The latter two equations,
however, only involve the sums of the stator and rotor
currents and voltages. If the rotor and stator 3-phase windings
have an isolated neutral point, the sums of the stator currents
and of the rotor currents is zero; the same is then true for the
sums of the voltages, as can be seen from the equations. Thus
the only remaining differential equations are time-invariant.
It is thus concluded that, for this particular case, unified
machine theory is applicable.
This can be generalised to any machine having symmetrical
polyphase rotor and stator windings, with the same number
of phases m, where only the /nth harmonic appears in the
mutual inductances, and the neutral points of both stator
and rotor are isolated. This configuration is, however, very
particular. The purpose of this paper is to show that there
exist more general configurations where unified machine
theory can be applied, in the sense that a linear transformation can be found that reduces the set of time-varying
differential equations of the machine to a set of time-independent differential equations. However, the transformation matrix will not be the same as the transformation matrix
used in classical unified machine theory, where no space
harmonics are considered.

(-T)

sin (0 - f )

It is then easy to show that the set of six time-varying

A diagonal matrix is denoted by 'diag', a column vector by 'col'

PROC. IEE, Vol. 118, No. 10, OCTOBER 1971

*(0 = 5(0z(0
since this also yields a set of differential equations with timeinvariant matrix A.
The mathematical model of the electrical machine at
constant speed is described by the differential equations with
time-dependent coefficients:

4(0=

-RM(t) ~{

(10)

To apply the above considerations to this mathematical

model, the technique of Reference 2 is used. Therefore we try
to bring the inductance matrix M in the form of eqn. 7; since
1409

this matrix can be written in block form, and since Mrr is

constant, we first write Mss in the form of eqn. 7. The computation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of Mss is given in
Reference 2, and the real modal matrix

1/V2
S=

si

1/V2

sin (0

1/V2

sin ( 0
sin
In)

mJ

cos ( e-

?)

cos (

Msr = WS'

m)

sin (ft

8TT\

m)

cos f

'

4TT\

COS (

number of phases of the symmetric stator (or rotor) is

sufficiently high. However, the linear transformation (eqn. 14)
is not the same as the transformation used in classical unified
machine theory.2

(11)

where W is a constant matrix. This is only possible if the

number m of stator phases exceeds seven; there are then two
columns in S where the difference between the arguments of
the successive elements is 3.(27r/m). By taking the corresponding elements j8,- equal to 30, we obtain the eigenvectors
sin 30

sin 30 - lsin 3(0 A

and

cos 3d
cos 3(6 27r/m)
cos 30 - &,-n\m)

Using these eigenvectors in the modal matrix S, it is easily

checked from eqn. 5 that eqn. 11 holds. This yields

SAS'

SJV1

= VDV

(12)

where A = diag (Ao, Ab A 2 ,.. . )

is the matrix of the eigenvalues of Mss (Reference 2),
W=M{N{QX

+ M3/V3<23

\ [~0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 . . .
|_0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 . .

where / is the n x identity matrix, and

D

sin (ft

4TT\

m/

J(-

cos ft

sin A

COS0

is obtained, where j8,, j8 2 ,... are arbitrary. This modal matrix

satisfies the requirements of Theorem 1. Moreover, M can
be written in the same form if the stator-rotor inductance
matrix can be expressed as

M=

It is thus concluded that unified machine theory still holds,

in the sense that the set of time-varying equations of a slipring machine can be reduced to a set of time-invariant
differential equations (of a commutator machine), if the

~ \_w

Hence
RM(t)~l = V(t)CV(t)'

(13)

where C = RD~ .
This shows that RM(t)~l is of the form in eqn. 7, so that the
transformation suggested above can be used to transform the
machine equations (eqn. 10) into a set of time-invariant
differential equations. The transformed variables are obtained
by means of the linear transformation
(14)
This leads to the set of time-invariant equations
_. . _dL

05)

where F = V' V is constant. Since the transformation is

orthogonal, the power is easily computed:
P = i'nRin + i'nD + i'nFDin

(16)

where each of the three terms can be physically interpreted.2

1410

Discussions and generalisations

In the previous Section, it was shown that the ideas of

unified machine theory can also be applied where the rotorstator mutual inductances are nonsinusoidal functions of the
rotor angle, but contain a third harmonic provided that the
number of phases on the polyphase stator is at least seven.
For this case, a transformation on the voltage and current
vectors has been displayed, which transforms the set of timedependent linear differential equations of the electrical
machine at constant speed into a set of time-invariant differential equations. The derivation of this transformation
matrix is a straightforward application of the linear-systemtheory approach to unified machine theory.2
It is easy to extend the ideas of the previous section to cases
where the mutual inductances between stator and rotor coils
contain more harmonics. If the highest harmonic is k, a
transformation matrix achieving time invariance can be
constructed along the lines set forth in Section 3, if the number
of phases on the symmetric polyphase stator (or rotor) is at
least 2k + 1. This same property also holds if even harmonics
occur, which is excluded, however, if the inductance is an odd
function of the rotor angle.
Suppose that the number of stator phases is such that the
above condition is satisfied and the transformation matrix
can be constructed. If the stator phases are connected to
identical impedances, the relationship between the transformed stator voltages and currents is also time-invariant.2
Since the rotor voltages and currents are invariant under the
transformation, it is clear that the machine is a time-invariant
input-output system, seen from the rotor terminals. This
result is rather surprising, since it shows that, in sinusoidal
steady state, the rotor voltages produced by sinusoidal current
sources at the rotor terminals do not contain time harmonics,
although the stator voltages and currents do contain
harmonics owing to the space harmonics. This property
would be much more difficult to prove using standard
techniques for machine analysis. In most cases where the
stationarity property is important (e.g. induction machines),
the roles of rotor and stator are inversed.
Consider a symmetric polyphase stator (or rotor) with an
even number of phases. Suppose that the k + 1 . . . 2th
phases are taken away, but that the 1st, 2nd, . . . th phases
now have the voltages vl vk+l and currents // i^+i', nothing has been changed as far as the airgap field, rotor currents
and voltages, or mechanical torque are concerned. A symmetrical stator with k identical coils distributed along half
the boundary and with an angle 2TT/2A: between each of them
will be called here a symmetrical 2A;/2-phase stator or a
stator with semi2fc phases.
Using the above argument, or applying the technique of
Section 3 directly to a machine with a 2/:/2-phase stator, it is
readily seen that unified machine theory can be applied to
such machines provided that k> a, where a is the order of
the highest harmonic in the rotor-stator mutual inductances,
and provided that all harmonics are of odd order. Stationary
of machines with a semieven number of phases can also be
PROC. IEE, Vol. 118, No. 10, OCTOBER 1971

discussed in a similar way. For example, consider an induction

machine with four phases on the rotor with their axis at 45
angles. The machine is stationary at the stator ports even if
the mutual inductances contain a 3rd harmonic. The discussion at the end of Section 2 shows that this result is true for
induction machines with symmetrical 3-phase rotors and
stators with isolated neutral points. The case considered here
yields a stationary behaviour, even if the neutral points are
not isolated, and even if the stator is not symmetrical.
The condition obtained in the previous section gives a
sufficient condition so that all harmonics up to a certain
order can be taken into account, and so that unified machine
analysis can still be applied. However, the following discussion shows that unified machine theory is also applicable
in other cases. Suppose that a machine satisfying the condition
that the kth harmonic in the mutual inductances can be taken
into account by using the following column in the transformation matrix
k(m -

1)2TT

,r. ,
. /,
k(mcol sin (kcot), . . ., sin < kcot

1)2TT

col cos (kcot), . . ., cos { kcot

If now the mutual inductances do not contain the kth harmonic, but contain one harmonic of order pm + k for some
integer p, the technique can also be applied. Indeed, use the
following columns in the transformation matrix:
col cos {(k + pm)cot},. ..,

2-n(m-\)k
m

(k + pm)cot

2iT(m-\)k

col sin {(k + pm)cot}, . . ., sin < (k +pm)cot

>

where the equality

cos {(k + pm(cot l27T/m)} = cos i (k + pm)cot
sin {(k + pm)(cot l2Trjm)} = sin < (k + pm)cot

kl27r\

has been used repeatedly. The same property is true for an

harmonic of order pm-k for some ineger p.
The above column vectors are eigenvectors of the statorinductance matrix, as can easily be concluded from eqn. 11.
The thus obtained modal matrix still satisfies SS '= constant.
If both rotor and stator are symmetric and have polyphase
structure with an unequal number of phases, unified machine
theory (without considering space harmonics) can be applied
by transforming either the stator or the rotor variables.
Where space harmonics are considered, however, it is better
to transform the variables on the member with the higher
number of phases, since this makes it possible to take a larger
number of space harmonics into consideration. For squirrelcage induction machines, the rotor has a high number of
phases, so that the transformation of the rotor variables
enables one to take a large number of space harmonics into
consideration.
The final conclusion is that a linear transformation exists
to transform the set of time-dependent differential equations
describing a machine with uniform airgap and without commutator into a set of time-invariant differential equations
(for constant machine speed) in the following cases:
(a) If one member (rotor or stator) of the machine has a
symmetrical m-phase winding; the space harmonics can then
be taken into consideration if, at most, one belongs to any of
the following sets:

T=

(iii) the set of harmonics of order pm - (for m odd)

or pm ( 1 J (for m even) for some integer p.
(b) If both rotor and stator have a symmetrical polyphase
winding, it is sufficient that the condition above is true for one
of them.
In some particular cases, it is also possible to take harmonics of order pm (and pm/2, if m is even) into account;
therefore one should check if homopolar currents and voltages
can occur. If the number of phases m of the symmetrical
polyphase winding is odd, and if only odd harmonics are
present, the above rule implies that all harmonics of order
smaller than m can be taken into consideration. This is
interesting for squirrel-cage induction motors where the
number of phases on the rotor equals the number of bars.
It is of course clear that only where the machine speed is
constant will the transformed set of equations be linear and
time-invariant. If the speed is not constant, the transformed
set of equations only depends on the rotor speed, but not on
the angular position of the rotor; this is interesting for
numerical computation.
A number of papers are available in the electrical-engineering literature that deal with the effect of space harmonics
on the analysis and the performance of electrical machines.
Naser5 applies the unified-machine-theory ideas to machines
with space harmonics, but his results and method are only
valid if the condition obtained in the present paper holds; the
analysis presented in a recent report by Bausch and Weis6 only
yields the complete solution of the electrical-machine equations if this same condition is true, which clearly restricts the
number and the orders of the space harmonics. Barton and
Dunfield7'8 have obtained as sufficient condition for the
applicability of unified machine theory that all harmonics be
of odd order and less than the number of rotor phases; as
indicated above, this is a particular case of the more general
sufficiency condition obtained here. An additional feature of
the present paper with respect to earlier studies is that unified-machine-theory techniques are introduced by means of
linear-system-theory methods; this yields an a priori derivation of the linear transformation;2 most earlier papers use
2-axis theory, and the usefulness of the proposed linear transformations is usually only checked a posteriori. The importance of space harmonics is shown by Dunfield and
Barton,9 and, in particular for reluctance machines, by
Lawrenson et a/.10

Example

Consider a synchronous machine with symmetrical

8/2-phase stator and two damping coils and a d.c. field coil
on the rotor. The stator is connected to a symmetrical polyphase current source with phase currents I\/(2) cos (cot 8),
V(2) cos {cot - (rr/4) - 8}, V ( 2 ) cos {cot - (TT/2) - 8)},

/\/(2) cos {cot (3TT/4) 8}, and the sinusoidal steady state
is considered. The rotor-stator mutual inductances are assumed to contain a 1st and a 3rd harmonic. The transformation to be used for this example is
in = Ti
= Tu

i = T%
u= T'un

where

sin cot

sin (cot

cos cot

cos (cot

sin 3cot

sin 3 (cot

-7-

cos 3cot
PROC. 1EE, Vol. 118, No. 10, OCTOBER 1971

(i) the set of harmonics of rank p{m + 1 or p{m 1 for

some integer p{
(ii) the set of harmonics of order p2m + 2 or p2m + 2 for
some integer p2

cos 3 (cot

4/

~ 47

47
47

sin (cot

2/

cos (cot

sin 3 (cot
cos 3 (cot

sin (cot
cos (cot

-f)
7T\

27

sin 3 (cot
cos 3 (cot

3TT\

~ TJ
~ ~4~)
3TT\

~ TJ
1411

The transformed stator currents are 2/ sin 8, 21 cos 8, 0 and 0.

The damping-coil currents are zero because steady state is
considered. The machine equations, with Uni denoting the
transformed stator voltages, are
Unl = 2^,/sin 8 - 2wA2/cos 8 + ^{2)MfIf
Unl = 2RsIcos 8 2coA,/sin 5

equations. This generalises unified machine theory to deal

with some cases where space harmonics are not negligible.
The paper shows that an interesting relationship exists
between unified machine theory and linear system theory,
which is mainly used for the study of linear control systems.
7

Eff=RfIfIf
where My-and M3yare the amplitudes of the fundamental and
3rd harmonic in the mutual inductance between thefieldcoil
and a stator coil; Rf, /y-and ^are thefieldresistance, current,
and voltage, respectively. The above solutions immediately
show that the stator voltages are not sinusoidal polyphase
quantities, but contain a 3rd harmonic; this is due to the
presence of the space harmonic. It would be much harder to
obtain this solution by means of standard analysis techniques.
This is even more true for the solution of problems involving
transient machine behaviour, since the reduction of a set of
time-varying differential equations to a set of time-invariant
differential equations considerably simplifies the solution of
the problem.

Conclusions

In this paper, it has been shown that, in some cases

where space harmonics are taken into consideration, a linear
transformation can be set up to transform the nonstationary
equations describing an electrical machine to stationary

1412

Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges discussions with
Prof. R. W. Brockett at Harvard University; this research
was partially supported by NASA Grant NGR 22-007-172.
8
1

References
WHITE, D. c , and WOODSON, H. H.: 'Electromechanical energy

conversion' (Wiley, 1959)

2 WILLEMS, J. L. : 'A system theory approach to unified electrical
machine theory', Internal. J. Control, 1971 (to be published)
3 JONES, c. v.: 'The unified theory of electrical machines' (Butterworths, 1967)
4 WILLEMS, J. L. : 'A new derivation to the transformation matrices
in generalized machine theory', Internal. J. Elec. Eng. Educ,
1971 (to be published)
5 NASER, s. A. : 'Electromechanical energy conversion in nm-winding
double cylindrical structures in the presence of space harmonics',
IEEE Trans., 1968, PAS-87, pp. 1094-1106
6

BAUSCH, H., and

WEIS,

M. :

'Hauptachsentransformation

der

Induktionsmaschine mit Kafig Laufer' (to be published)

7 BARTON, T. H., and DUNFIELD, J. c.: 'Polyphase to two-axis transformations for real windings', ibid., 1968, PAS-87, pp. 1342-1346
8 DUNFIELD, J. c , and BARTON, T. H. : 'Axis transformations for practical primitive machines', ibid., 1968, PAS-87, pp. 1346-1354
9 DUNFIELD, J. c , and BARTON, T. H. : 'Effect of m.m.f. and permeance
harmonics in electrical machines, with special reference to synchronous machines', Proc. IEE, 1967, 114, (10), pp. 1443-1450
10

LAWRENSON, P. J., MATHUR, R. M., a n d MURTHY VAMARAJU, S. R.:

'Importance of winding and permeance harmonics in the prediction

of reluctance-motor performance', ibid., 1969,116, (5), pp. 781-787

PROC. IEE, Vol. 118, No. 10, OCTOBER 1971