Electric motor
Electric motor, any of a class of devices that convert electricity to mechanical energy, usually by using electromagnetic phenomena.
What is a power motor?
How can you bring things in motion and maintain them moving without moving a muscle mass? While steam engines create mechanical energy using incredibly hot steam or, more exactly, steam pressure, electric motors use electric energy as their supply. For this reason, electric motors are also called electromechanical transducers.
The counter piece to the electric electric motor is the Ac Induction Motor generator, which has a similar structure. Generators transform mechanic motion into electric power. The physical basis of both processes may be the electromagnetic induction. In a generator, current is definitely induced and electrical energy is created whenever a conductor is at a moving magnetic field. Meanwhile, within an electric motor a current-holding conductor induces magnetic areas. Their alternating forces of attraction and repulsion create the basis for generating motion.
How does a power motor work?
Motor housing with stator
Motor housing with stator
In general, the heart of an electric motor includes a stator and a rotor. The term “stator” comes from the Latin verb “stare” = “to stand still”. The stator may be the immobile component of a power motor. It really is firmly attached to the equally immobile casing. The rotor on the other hand is installed to the electric motor shaft and will move (rotate).
In case of AC motors, the stator includes the so-called laminated core, which is wrapped in copper wires. The winding works as a coil and generates a rotating magnetic field when current is flowing through the wires. This magnetic field made by the stator induces a current in the rotor. This current after that generates an electromagnetic field around the rotor. Consequently, the rotor (and the attached motor shaft) rotate to follow the rotating magnetic field of the stator.
The electric motor serves to apply the created rotary motion in order to drive a equipment unit (as torque converter and speed variator) or to directly drive a credit card applicatoin as line motor.
What forms of electric motors can be found?
All inventions began with the DC motor. Nowadays however, AC motors of various designs are the mostly used electrical motors in the market. They all possess a common result: The rotary motion of the motor axis. The function of AC motors is founded on the electromagnetic operating principle of the DC engine.
DC motors
As with most electrical motors, DC motors consist of an immobile part, the stator, and a moving component, the rotor. The stator consists either of a power magnet used to induce the magnetic field, or of long lasting magnets that consistently generate a magnetic field. Inside of the stator is where in fact the rotor is usually located, also called armature, that is wrapped by a coil. If the coil is linked to a source of direct current (a battery, accumulator, or DC voltage supply unit), it creates a magnetic field and the ferromagnetic primary of the rotor becomes an electromagnet. The rotor is usually movable installed via bearings and will rotate to ensure that it aligns with the attracting, i.electronic. opposing poles of the magnetic field – with the north pole of the armature opposite of the south pole of the stator, and the other method round.
In order to arranged the rotor in a continuing rotary motion, the magnetic alignment must be reversed over and over. This is attained by changing the current direction in the coil. The electric motor has a so-known as commutator for this purpose. Both supply contacts are connected to the commutator and it assumes the duty of polarity reversal. The changing attraction and repulsion forces make sure that the armature/rotor proceeds to rotate.
DC motors are mainly utilized in applications with low power ratings. These include smaller tools, hoists, elevators or electric vehicles.
Asynchronous AC motors
Instead of direct current, an AC motor requires three-phase alternating current. In asynchronous motors, the rotor is usually a so-known as squirrel cage rotor. Turning outcomes from electromagnetic induction of the rotor. The stator consists of windings (coils) offset by 120° (triangular) for every phase of the three-phase current. When linked to the three-phase current, these coils each build-up a magnetic field which rotates in the rhythm of the temporally offset series frequency. The electromagnetically induced rotor is definitely carried along by these magnetic areas and rotates. A commutator much like the DC electric motor is not required in this way.
Asynchronous motors are also called induction motors, as they function only via the electromagnetically induced voltage. They operate asynchronously since the circumferential speed of the electromagnetically induced rotor by no means reaches the rotational speed of the magnetic field (rotating field). Because of this slip, the efficiency of asynchronous AC motors is lower than that of DC motors.
More on the framework of AC motors / asynchronous motors and on what we offer
AC synchronous motors
In synchronous motors, the rotor has permanent magnets rather than windings or conductor rods. In this manner the electromagnetic induction of the rotor could be omitted and the rotor rotates synchronously without slip at the same circumferential swiftness as that of the stator magnetic field. Performance, power density and the possible speeds are thus considerably higher with synchronous motors than with asynchronous motors. However, the design of synchronous motors is also a lot more complex and time-consuming.
Additional information about synchronous motors and our portfolio
Linear motors
As well as the rotating machines that are mainly utilized in the industry, drives for movements on straight or curved tracks are also required. Such movement profiles occur mainly in machine tools as well as positioning and handling systems.
Rotating electric motors can also convert their rotary movement into a linear movement using a gear 
unit, we.e. they are able to cause it indirectly. Often, however, they don’t have the required dynamics to realize particularly challenging and fast “translational” movements or positioning.
That’s where linear motors enter into play that generate the translational motion directly (direct drives). Their function could be produced from the rotating electrical motors. To do this, imagine a rotating engine “opened up”: The previously round stator becomes a set travel distance (monitor or rail) which is certainly protected. The magnetic field after that forms along this route. In the linear motor, the rotor, which corresponds to the rotor in the three-phase electric motor and rotates in a circle there, is stopped the travel range in a straight range or in curves by the longitudinally moving magnetic field of the stator as a so-called carriage or translator.
More details about linear motors and our drive solutions