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Resonance effects, power quality and reliability

issues of high-power converters-fed drives
employed in modern SAG circuits

Article in Minerals Engineering November 2004

DOI: 10.1016/j.mineng.2004.06.024

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 Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
This article is also available online at:
www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

Resonance eects, power quality and reliability issues of

high-power converters-fed drives employed in modern SAG circuits
a,*
J. Pontt , J. Rodrguez b, W. Valderrama a, G. Sepulveda a, G. Alzamora c

a
Centre for Semiautogenous Grinding and Electrical Systems, Technical University Federico Santa Mara, P.O. Box 110-V, Valparaso, Chile
b
Department of Electronics, Technical University Federico Santa Mara, P.O. Box 110-V, Valparaso, Chile
c
Minera Los Pelambres, Chile

Received 29 April 2004; accepted 23 June 2004

Abstract

For economy of scale, new projects consider grinding circuits with SAG and ball mills with 36 0 or larger mill diameters with
cycloconverter-fed drives with powers in the range near 20 MW. For the huge volume of slurry ows, big pumps with low-speed
gearless drives fed by medium voltage converters in the range of 12 MW are being considered. Due to the high mechanical torque
involved and process control, variable-speed is a must.
Variable speed gearless drives consume variable reactive power and inject harmonic and variable-frequency interharmonic cur-
rents into the electrical network causing voltage distortions. For a good performance and reliability of the electrical system regard-
ing eciency, power factor, power quality and avoidance of dangerous resonances, the proper design, for compatibility and
operation of harmonic lters and electrical equipments, emerges as a very important issue.
This work presents a concept design and an application case for dealing with the new scenario where low-damping factors and
high-non-linear character of converter loads state a challenge to be faced for the design and reliable operation of the electrical
equipment.

2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Comminution; SAG milling; Grinding; Mineral processing; Process control

1. Introduction new projects consider big mill grinding circuits, with

Mining operations are facing the challenge of com-
petitiveness because of low metal prices, environmental
issues and higher operating costs. Mining plants and
concentrators are located in demanding environments,
with a combination of high altitude, mountainous loca-
tions and long distances from electrical power supply.
Comminution is one of the main stages in mineral
processing, because of investment, energy, materials
and maintenance costs. Looking for economies of scale,
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +56 32 654554; fax: +56 32 797468.
E-mail address: jorge.pontt@usm.cl (J. Pontt).
large power gearless motor drives (GMD) fed by
cycloconverters in the range of 1020 MW, as shown
in Table 1.
However, the big grinding units, especially the sem-
iautogenous (SAG) mills have the drawback of being
a bottleneck when one unit goes out of service, that
is why, reliability and availability are the main concerns
(Magne et al., 2001). For the huge volume of slurry
ows, big pumps with low-speed gearless drives fed
by frequency converters in the range of 12 MW have
been recently introduced, (Rotella et al., 2003). Due
to the high mechanical torque involved and process
control, variable-speed and high-performance torque
control is a must. High-power medium voltage

0892-6875/$ - see front matter
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2004.06.024
1126 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Table 1
Mill drives selected in recent projects
Mining project, location Mill power, and # of units
Minera Escondida, Chile 18 000 HP
Minera Los Pelambres, Chile 2 18 000 HP
Collahuasi, Chile 2 16 000 HP
Codelco Andina, Chile 1 16 000 HP
Antamina, Peru 1 26 000 HP, 3 1.000 HP
Candelaria, Chile 2 16 000 HP
Minera Escondida, Phase IV Chile 1 26 000 HP, 3 18 000 HP
Codelco El Teniente, Chile 1 26 000 HP, 2 15 000 HP
Vale do Rio Doce, Sossego, Brasil 1 26 000 HP
Collahuasi, Chile 1 27 000 HP 2 20 000 HP
frequency converters based on multilevel structures are
gaining more applications, where one of the most com-
mon congurations is the three-level neutral point
clamped inverter (Rodrguez et al., 2002). Advanced
congurations with fault-tolerance methods for higher
reliability are currently being developed (Rodrguez
et al., 2003).
Power electronics with more powerful semiconductor
switches and information technologies have enabled the
development of high-performance high-power medium-
voltage converters technology for large drives. The elec-
trical distribution systems employ medium voltage levels
in the range of 4.16 to 33 kV. The higher the voltage, the
lower the power losses, motivating the trend to higher
voltages for better eciency and voltage regulation of
the electrical distribution systems.
Mining installations with high-power drives state a
new scenario and a challenge for engineering design with
the following issues:
(a) Voltage distortionnon-linear loads and harmonic
current injections.
(b) Eciencyreactive power compensation.
(c) Malfunction of equipment and undesirable trip-
pingharmonics and non-linearities.
(d) Overvoltagesunfavorable conditions with excita-
tions of resonances.
(e) Commutation failures of the CCVnetwork and
external disturbances. Huge forcestransient elec-
tromagnetic torque under short circuits.
(f) Complexity and scaling-up the knowledge and
applications of large converter-fed comminution
drives.
(a) Large power cycloconverters increase the non-
linear character of the system and inject harmonic cur-
rents into the power supply causing voltage distortions.
Harmonic distortions can trigger undesirable tripping
and sometimes damage to the equipment, aecting reli-
ability. Proper design, compatibility, operation of har-
monic lters and control of electrical equipments
regarding the operational and maintenance of the proc-
ess equipment emerge as a very important issue
Drive topology Year
LCI-twin motor drive 1998
Gearless, cycloconverter (GMD-CCV) 1999
Twin drives, cycloconverter 1999
(GMD-CCV) 1999
(GMD-CCV) 2000
(GMD-CCV) 2000
(GMD-CCV) 2002
(GMD-CCV) 2003
(GMD-CCV) 2003
(GMD-CCV) 2004
(Horger, 1997; Errath et al., 2001). In addition, weak
networks with long overhead lines worsen the system
stability.
(b) Large GMDs for SAG and ball mills increase the
impact of large power converters in the behavior of the
power distribution system. Variable speed GMDs con-
sume variable reactive power causing low power factor
operation and voltage distortions aecting the perform-
ance of the system. Reactive power and harmonics
should be controlled by means of power harmonic lters
(Pontt et al., 2003).
(c) Electrical protections may be tripped due to volt-
age distortions. Normal operation of three-phase systems
is with symmetrical sinusoidal waveforms. Harmonic and
interharmonic excitations have unsymmetrical behavior
and can excite non-linearities like transformer magnetical
saturation. Especially by switching equipment, transient
harmonics may be bigger and unsymmetrical enough
for triggering the protection systems.
(d) The use of higher voltage levels for electrical dis-
tribution systems allows better voltage regulation and
lower energy losses, however, the damping factors are
lower and the corresponding resonances are higher.
Resonances can be excited and severe overvoltages can
be generated producing damage to the equipments,
(Paul, 2001).
(e) The hard commutations of power semiconductors,
inrush currents or voltage surges caused by switching
and lightning can cause severe dv/dt and di/dt with high
values of electromagnetic elds which can be transferred
through the grounding or parasitic inductive or capaci-
tive paths to electronic control components, causing
malfunctioning of the electronic equipment. Therefore,
electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is a matter of
growing concern. Under network or external distur-
bances, the blocking and reclosing of the cycloconverter
must be properly controlled in order to avoid commuta-
tion failures. A commutation failure may conduct to a
short circuit at the terminals of the stator, causing big
torque oscillations and huge forces in the stator frame
and foundation (Tischler, 2003).
(f) Modern plants are more complex. In addition,
scaling-up of large equipment with high-power convert-
 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
ers is not an easy task because of unexpected behavior
due to new interdisciplinary phenomena, like mechani-
cal resonances excited by electromagnetic excitations,
(Meimaris et al., 2001) or resonance excitations in elec-
trical networks with high-power drives (Pontt and
Rodrguez, 1999; Pontt et al., 2001).
2. The proposed approach
In order to avoid or reduce the probability of the
occurrence of the aforementioned problems, proper
understanding of the phenomena is needed, oering a
wide eld for research and development. For dealing
with the described new scenario, this work presents an
approach based on the analysis of spectral impedances
of the main buses of the electrical system as the basic
concept for integrating steady and transient behavior
with low-damping factors and high-non-linear character
of converter loads.
2.1. Gearless mill drives and gearless pump drives
Fig. 1 shows the grinding circuit of a modern copper
concentrator with rated capacity of 110 000 tonnes per
day (MTPD) with four gearless mill drives (GMD),
comprising one SAG mill of 26.000 HP and three ball
mills of 18.000 HP each one. Slurry pumps with a rating
near 2000 HP with gearless low-speed motors fed by fre-
quency converters are applied (Bergholz et al., 2003;
Rotella et al., 2003). Fig. 2 depicts a gearless mill drive,
where the mechanical power is transferred electromag-
netically between the stator and poles of the rotor
(Errath et al., 2003). For a 20 MW ring-motor, the rated
torque is near 20 106 Nm with great forces between
stator and rotor.
Fig. 3 shows the comparison between a conventional
pump drive and the gearless scheme using low-speed
Fig. 1. Grinding circuit of a 110.000 MTPD copper concentrator.
1127
Fig. 2. Gearless drive for a SAG mill.
high-torque motor fed by a frequency converter. With
a global eciency of near 89% instead of 76%, the latter
has an improvement in eciency of about 13% because
it has no gearbox losses.
2.2. Power factor dependence on the speed in a GMD
Power factor depends on the operating speed. Until
now it has been a current practice in the design of the
electrical system considering the nominal power factor
for rated operating speed of a GMD. However, the
movement of the load depends strongly upon several
operating variables like viscosity, ore size distribution
and rotation speed. In addition, the wearing of the lifters
changes its geometry along the time. There are also
harmful impacts because of the ball trajectories impact-
ing in the lifters, with energy loss, accelerated steel ball
wear and jeopardizing the life of lifters and the availabil-
ity of the mill (Sams et al., 2003). That is why variable
speed is employed in the operation of high-power mills
and the variability of the operating power factor should
be considered with more attention. Detailed information
from manufacturers regarding power factor versus speed
is not always available. To have a practical relation be-
tween operating power factor and operating speed a
Fig. 3. Gearless low-speed slurry pump drive.
1128 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134

simplied analysis is carried out in the following. The Pow er Factor

operating power factor (PF) of a cycloconverter depends
on the operating speed of rotation N [rpm], p pole pairs 100%
of the synchronmachine and Fo, the output frequency 95%
[Hz] of the cycloconverter. The relation between the 90%
85%
speed of rotation N [rpm], p pole pairs of the synchron-
80%
machine and Fo, the output frequency [Hz] of the cyclo-
75%
converter, is given by (1).
70%
N F o  60=p 1 65%
60%
So, for example, a synchronmotor of 40 pole pairs, for a 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 110% 120%
rotation speed of 9.8 [rpm] needs a feeding of electrical
Speed
power of 6.53 [Hz] from the cycloconverter.
The output voltage of the cycloconverter, neglecting Fig. 4. Operating power factor of a GMD as function of speed.
the voltage drop in the reactance of the machine, is given
by (2), where w is the machine ux, which is held con- Eq. (8) shows that the operating power factor PF de-
stant over the nominal speed range. pends directly on the operating speed. Despite the sim-
plications, this relation is very useful for calculating
V o W  2p  F o W  2p  N  p=60 2 the needs of reactive power compensation of the electri-
cal system, for proper design regarding energy eciency,
The output voltage of the cycloconverter Vo is control-
which is one of the main cost items in comminution. Fig.
led by the control angle ac of the phase control system.
4 shows PF as function of speed.
Dening a as an average value of the control angle ac,
the fundamental component of the output voltage
2.3. Transient behavior and resonances of the system
of the cycloconverter is given by:
V o K  cos a 3 Industrial systems have a complex nature concerning
where K depends on the load power factor of the motor, electrical transient behavior. From the dynamical point
type and degree of modulation of the cycloconverter, of view, a system of order n has n natural modes. The
Salzman and Schultz (1975). Considering a unity power n-order is built with the conguration of n single dynam-
factor of the motor and trapezoidal modulation, the ical components: inductances and capacitances. Com-
maximum power factor is achieved at rated speed by de- plex modes can build oscillations, represented in
sign, with a maximum value near 0.86 as informed by general by a model of a second order system. Oscillation
the major manufacturers. The power factor at the input modes are formed with two pair of conjugated poles
of the cycloconverter is given by (4), where g is the dis- (two natural modes). So, an n-order system may have
tortion factor, cos/1 is the displacement factor with the n/2 oscillation modes. Amplitude and duration of tran-
angle /1 dened as the average of the displacement sients depend on the damping of the system. At higher
angle between fundamental components of voltage and distribution voltage levels, equipments have lower per-
current in one phase at the network side. unit losses, with lower damping eects. Resonance phe-
nomena happen when natural modes are excited and
PF g  cos /1 4 amplitudes may reach high values. Switching of equip-
ment is the most common excitation. The most eective
The displacement factor depends on the control angle a way for analyzing the dynamic behavior of an electrical
and commutation angle u as shown in Eq. (5): system is by means of the impedance analysis. Using the
cos /1  cosa u=2 5 well-known Laplace notation, the impedance Z(s) may
be described by a transfer function given by:
For simplicity, neglecting the eect of the commutation
angle u, the displacement factor can be written as: Gs
Zs 9
cos /1  cos a 6 H s

Resuming Eqs. (1), (2), (3) and (6), Eq. (4) may be ex- where H(s) is the well-known characteristic function.
pressed as: H(s) can be described as a product of n terms as a func-
tion of the poles kk, with k = 1, . . . , n.
PF  g  W  2p  p=K  N =60 7
H s s  k1 s  k2 . . . s  kn 10
Dening K2 as K2 = g (W 2p p/K)/60, Eq. (7) may
be written in a simpler way, Dynamical behavior of this system is described by a set
of dierential equations of n-order. An industrial system
PF  K2  N 8 has a complex high order model behavior. The proposed
 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134 1129

approach based on the impedance analysis detects the

resonances, giving the frequency ranges for focusing
the transient analysis with simplied but eective mod-
els, accordingly.

3. Cycloconverter issues

3.1. Schemes

Fig. 5 presents the power circuit topology of a cyclo-

converter-fed synchronous motor with one stator wind-
ing. The current in each phase is controlled by a 12-pulse
cycloconverter. The eld current of the rotor is control-
led by a 6-pulse controlled rectier. The 12-pulse con-
guration is obtained by the wye-delta connection in
the secondary of the power transformers that reduces
the 6-pulse characteristics harmonics. Fig. 6 shows the
scheme of a two-stator winding fed by two 6-pulse cyclo-
converters, giving a 12-pulse behavior at the line side.
3.2. Reliability aspects
Cycloconverters are built with twelve 6-pulse bridges
in dual converter connection using thyristors without
circulating current operation. Thyristors are semicon-
ductor switches which commutate electronically with
the phase-control following control references at the
input of the current controllers for injecting sinusoidal
currents of variable frequency to the motor. To switch
o the thyristors during normal operation, the network
voltage is needed. When a power disturbance occurs and
the cycloconverter is operating in the inverter mode, a
short circuit may happen because the thyristors cannot
commutate. The same eect may happen under normal
supply voltage but with a malfunction of the control sys-
tem or a thyristor failure driving two antiparallel bridges
in conduction mode. Because the motor has an internal
supply system
Fig. 6. Cycloconverter-fed GMD with two stator windings.
generated voltage, it behaves like a generator and feeds
the short circuit causing huge currents with strong
mechanical reaction forces against the poles, stator
frame and foundation, as shown in Fig. 7. The pulsating
torque produced by a short-circuit can reach 700% the
value of rated torque. Proper mechanical design should
ensure that the thyristors, machine and foundation can
withstand such situation (Tischler, 2003). The control
and protection system of cycloconverters should recog-
nize the abnormal conditions in order to switch o the
thyristors at the right time before such a short circuit
is produced. Modeling and simulation support the anal-
ysis and design (Pontt and Vasquez, 1994).
3.3. Design for reliability
Reliability may be regarded as a statistical concept.
For a system, the most common characterization is
through medium time between failures factor (MTBF).
A high reliability is made by minimizing the probability

excitation

i L1 i L2 i
L3
L1 L2 L3
i
open and closed L1,L2,L3 M
loop controls 3-
L1,L2,L3

Fig. 5. Cycloconverter-fed GMD with one stator winding. Fig. 7. Mechanical forces originated by short-circuit.
1130 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Fig. 8. Design for reliability and compatibility levels.
of the occurrence of the event disturbed condition, as
given by:
P fImmunity level 6 disturbance levelgk ! 0
with k = 1, . . . , m, where k describes a variable k and m is
the number of variables considered in the design. Fig. 8
depicts this concept with two probability density func-
tions for disturbance and immunity levels, respectively.
The disturbance level describes the amplitude of a
variable that can produce a failure or malfunction. The
immunity level of the equipment describes the amplitude
of this variable for being immune to the disturbance.
Clearly, the greater the immunity, the higher the cost of
the equipment and reasonable trade-os should be met
reasonably. A big safety margin means a big separation
of two density functions. That is very important for crit-
ical variables. Critical variables are those, which under
disturbed condition can cause important failures and
damages, for example overvoltages. In fact, an overvolt-
age may cause severe stress to equipment insulation. If the
insulation level is not enough, severe damage may be the
consequence. Other variables regarding performance
may have a tolerance, for example the harmonic distor-
tion limits, where assessment with statistics of a 5% per-
centile is commonly allowed for exceeding a given limit.
A disturbed condition of main equipment cause
downtimes aecting availability. Availability depends
on reliability and the time of recovering the normal
functionality. Although a good design minimizes the
event of disturbed condition, such possibility still ex-
ists and must be planned for in the design, (De Winter
et al., 2002). Interlocks with other upstream and down-
stream equipments complicate the recovery of function-
ality of large drives. In addition, under some
circumstances special procedures must be done.
3.4. Overvoltages issues and impedance behavior
Fig. 9 shows the single-line diagram of an electrical
system feeding three GMD. A 110 kV network with
11
Fig. 9. Parallel resonances at the medium voltage distribution level for
dierent situations: (a) simplied electrical system with lters; (b)
spectral behavior of Impedance Z(f).
short circuit level Sk of 10002000 MVA feeds a trans-
former T1 with 60 MVA, short circuit impedance
Z% = 9%. The transformer feeds a medium voltage dis-
tribution bus of 33 kV. For power factor and harmonic
control three groups of high-pass harmonic lters are
considered. Each lter group has two branches of 3
MVAR each one, tuned to the harmonic orders 4.2
and 11.5, respectively. A transformer T2 with 10
MVA, Z% = 9% and X/R = 40 is considered. This sim-
ple circuit represents the possible situation during instal-
lation and commissioning, with very light load condition
(no-load operation). In order to analyze the transient
behavior of the system, the impedance Z(f) of the
33 kV bus is obtained for ve dierent cases:
Case 1: Nominal condition without lters with Sk =
2000 MVA.
Case 2: Nominal condition with lters (Three groups),
with Sk = 2000 MVA.
Case 3: Light load conditions without lters with
Sk = 1000 MVA.
Case 4: Light load condition with one lter branch 4.2
with Sk = 1000 MVA.
 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Case 5: Light load condition with one lter branch 11.5
with Sk = 1000 MVA.
It can be seen that parallel resonances are present in
Cases 1 and 3. Resonances are caused by the interaction
of inductances and capacitances of the system. Case 3 is
the worst-case scenario because of resonance at a lower
frequency. High values of parallel resonance means that
under transient conditions important undamped voltage
oscillations may happen. The connection of high-pass
harmonic lters helps the attenuation of parallel
resonances.
Fig. 10 depicts the behavior of the voltage at the ter-
minals of the 10 MVA transformer by no-load switch-
ing. Overvoltages of 451% may be observed. Similar
experimental results were obtained in previous work
presented by (Paul, 2001).
Big overvoltages may cause severe isolation stress.
Equipment and protective components like surge arrest-
ers should be designed for compatibility and isolation
coordination with corresponding isolation level (BIL).
Proper de-rating for altitude and environmental con-
ditions should be considered.
3.5. Power quality issues
Briey, electrical power is supplied by a network with
three-phase symmetrical sinusoidal voltages of 50 (or
60) Hz. Power quality is characterized by the continuity
and stability of energy supply, voltage regulation, volt-
age and current distortions within limits established by
standards.
Power quality directly aects the reliability of opera-
1131
failure, it must be selectively disconnected from the net-
work, regarding the required interlocking with other
equipment, without aecting other equipment group.
Abnormal conditions, electrical or mechanical, like
overcurrent, overloading, overheating and excessive
vibrations may trip electrical protections.
Power quality is a major concern in the application of
mill drives, mainly due to the following reasons: (i) a
failure in this equipment originates a large loss of pro-
duction with signicant economic losses and (ii) the high
power of this equipment (MW) has an important impact
on the operation of the power distribution system. Two
aspects in the interaction between the distribution sys-
tem and the converter loads are especially relevant: the
power factor and the current harmonics generated by
the converter, because both are related.
3.6. Harmonics and interharmonics
The cycloconverter is a very ecient converter. It has
no DC-Link with energy storage components like induc-
tors or capacitors between the network and load
(motor). That is why the cycloconverter injects not only
harmonics but also interharmonics into the network.
Interharmonics are components like lateral bands with
non-integer frequencies. The frequency of theses inter-
harmonics is not constant but depends on the output
frequency. Cycloconverters inject a distortion current
ID into the network with superposition of harmonic
and interharmonics currents components. For a 12-
pulse conguration the harmonic components are given
by:
X
ID ff1  6kf 0 g f11f 1  6kf 0 g
tion because electrical equipment may be damaged or
tripped under abnormal power conditions. Harmonic
currents and voltages are frequency components super-
imposed to the fundamental component of currents
and voltages, respectively, which produces additional
losses in equipment and can trip electrical protection
systems.
Voltage regulation and energy eciency is aected by
reactive power and also by starting of big machinery.
Operation of electrical equipment with proper protec-
tion coordination is also an important issue because if
some equipment experiences a trip, a malfunction or a
Fig. 10. Overvoltage by o switching of a 10 MVA transformer under
no-load condition.
f13f 1  6kf 0 g ff2 g ff3 g ff4 g 12
where {fh+/6kf0} is a term comprising the characteris-
tic frequency component fh and its lateral sidebands, f1 is
the fundamental current component of the network side
(50 Hz), f0 is the output frequency of the cycloconverter,
and k is an integer value k = 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . In addition,
non-characteristics harmonics components f2, f3, f4
should also be considered, specially when parallel reso-
nances may happen, (see Fig. 11). A more complex
problem arises with multiple cycloconverter-fed drives
operating at dierent output frequencies.
3.7. Filter design considerations
Harmonic lters are employed to improve power fac-
tor and reduce harmonic distortion. The total compen-
sation power must be calculated using the expected
active and reactive power demand of the plant under dif-
ferent operating conditions. Compensation power is dis-
tributed into dierent lter modules. Each module may
have several branches. To reduce harmonic voltage
1132 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Fig. 11. Harmonics and interharmonics injected by a cycloconverter
for a given speed.
distortion produced by cycloconverters, the tuning of l-
ter branches should be carefully calculated for attenuat-
ing the characteristic harmonics and interharmonics,
(Horger, 1997).
For harmonic analysis of an electrical system, the
behavior of impedances at main bus bars should be con-
sidered. High impedance at parallel resonance frequen-
cies produces increased voltage distortion for injected
harmonics and interharmonics currents. Voltage distor-
tion can cause undesirable eects, such as disturbances,
tripping of protections, overvoltages, exceeding of har-
monic limits. Big load rejections in weak networks can
cause instability with a snowball eect.
Proper design and placing of the parallel resonances
at convenient frequencies is not an easy task, requiring
many trade-os between system conguration and mod-
ularity of lters with more exibility. Variable speed
operation of GMDs injects interharmonics with chang-
ing frequency over a broad range, increasing the chance
for exciting resonances. That is why, high-pass lters
with damping resistors are applied. The common high-
pass lters are constructed with one capacitor, one reac-
tor and one resistor in parallel with the reactor. In order
to reduce the losses in the resistors, a C-Filter structure
is used, especially for branches with tuning to lower fre-
quency values. The mitigation of the lower parallel fre-
quencies is complex and a trade-o must be designed
among the reduction of voltage distortion, installation
cost losses, together with maintenance and operation.
3.8. Filter design and operation of an actual system
Fig. 12 depicts the simplied electrical system of a
modern concentrator plant with 4 GMDs. At the design
Fig. 12. Electrical system with 4 GMDs.
stage a careful study for the power factor and harmonic
control was carried out. A great number of operating
conditions of the electrical system were analyzed be-
cause the complexity of the productive system and re-
quired exibility. In order to ensure power quality
issues, reliability and operational exibility, a design
concept was developed by the engineering sta and man-
ufacturer concerning reactive power, harmonic control
and voltage regulation. Main issues were the high partic-
ipation of non-linear loads, voltage uctuations under
load connections and rejections, the resonances of low
harmonic orders and the possible excitation by the har-
monic injection of cycloconverters and other power con-
verters. General specications included a minimum
power factor of 95% (typical) at the point of common
coupling (PCC) 220 kV side and the compliance of
IEEE-Std.519-92 for dierent operating conditions.
For meeting the stringent specications, 80 MVAR
reactive power ltering was considered, distributed in
four modules (see Fig. 13). Each module has 20 MVAR
with six branches and four connection steps. Three
branches are of the C-type tuned to the 2nd, 3rd and
4th harmonic order and the other three branches are
conventional high-pass lters tuned to the 5th, 7th and
Fig. 13. Filter module for an actual concentrator with GMDs.
 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Fig. 14. Spectra behavior of impedance Z(f) for bus 3 of the system
shown in Fig. 12.
11th harmonic order. The rst step connects 5.5
MVAR-2nd, the second step connects 5.5 MVAR with
branches 3rd4th. The third step connects 5.5 MVAR
with branches 5th and 7th. The last step connects 3.7
MVAR with the branch 11th. A control system gives
the ON/OFF command for the dierent modules for
coarse and ne voltage control of the 23 kV buses.
Branch lters tuned to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th harmonic
order with C-Type were needed for mitigating the reso-
nances of lower frequency components at the medium
voltage 23 kV distribution bus bars.
Fig. 11 shows the prole of current injection for the
GMDs employed for harmonic analysis and design.
Low harmonic order injections, namely 2nd, 3rd and
4th harmonic orders were considered for reducing the
probability of excitation of low-frequency resonances.
Fig. 14 depicts the harmonic spectral behavior of the
impedance Z(f) of the main distribution bus 3 with one
Fig. 16. Power quality assessment of the electrical system shown in Fig. 12 at the commissioning stage.
1133
Fig. 15. Input current and spectrum network side of a cycloconverter-
fed GMD. (a) Input current at the network side of a cycloconverter.
(b) Spectrum of network current. Amplitude versus frequency.
lter module connected. It can be seen that 2nd, 3rd and
4th harmonic orders, 100, 150 and 200 Hz, respectively,
have relatively low controlled impedance, meeting the
design goals.
In order to avoid parallel resonances, the connection
of a minimum of one lter module for attenuating the
system resonances was recommended, although the
GMDs were not operating. For harmonic analysis, lter
design and evaluation, the software HarmonixTM was
employed (Pontt et al., 1997).
Fig. 15 depicts the measured input current and spec-
trum of a 12-pulse cycloconverter-fed GMD during
commissioning with light load. Interharmonics may be
recognized as lateral sidebands around characteristic
harmonics.
1134 J. Pontt et al. / Minerals Engineering 17 (2004) 11251134
Fig. 16 shows the Power Quality assessment follow-
ing the procedure for meeting Std. IEEE-519-92 at the
220 kV point of common coupling (PCC), concerning
harmonic voltage distortions, during commissioning
of the plant. Guidelines for better performance were
given and standards were thereafter met. It can be
seen that a 95% percentile is evaluated and assessed
during 7-day three-phase harmonic variables measure-
ment.
4. Conclusions
Modern comminution requires large and reliable elec-
trical systems for operation in mining environments,
with the trend being towards high-power large gearless
mill drives, gearless low-speed slurry pumps and more
ecient distribution power networks.
Resonance and transient behavior by low-damped
electrical systems increases the probability of overvol-
tages caused by resonances, where design and operation
of harmonic lters play an essential role on reliability
and availability.
Because gearless drives with variable speeds impose
variable power factors, a simple relation was proposed
for modeling and designing the reactive power control.
Further modeling and assessment of energy eciency
of large GMDs may provide useful tools for optimiza-
tion.
Analysis based on impedance behavior of main distri-
bution bus bars gives a powerful approach for reliable
design of electrical systems. Resonances can be detected
as well as a proper harmonic lter design. Results for an
actual case of application veries the proposed concept
design.
Further work concerning harmonics and interhar-
monics, steady and transient behavior of electrical sys-
tems with high-power converter drives have to be
carried out, with more attention to the increasing prob-
ability of new dynamical phenomena inherent by the
scaling-up of equipments within mining environments.
Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the support of the Chilean
Research Fund (CONICYT), grant FONDEF I-1081
and of the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Mara.
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