Electric machines

What is an electric motor?

In daily life, in industry or even at home or office, we need to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy. Electric machine is a device which do this conversion; it can convert electrical energy to mechanical energy and vise versa. When it converts electrical energy to mechanical one, it is an electric motor and when it converts mechanical energy to electrical energy, it is a generator. Each electric machine can be shift from a motor to a generator by changing the energy source.

Classification of electrical machines

The first classification of electrical machines is based on having a rotating part. They are either static or dynamic. Transformer is the main example of a static machine. Unlike, motor and generator, transformer has no rotating part and it is a static machine.

Most of other electric machines are dynamic. Dynamic or rotary machines are divided into alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) machines. As it can be seen in the below picture, AC machines or AC motors are divided into synchronous and induction sub-categories. Induction motors are either single phase or three phase motors.

DC machines on the other hand, are either separately excited or self-excited.  Self excited motors are sub-divided into series, compound or shunt.

Advantages of electrical machines on other electro-mechanical sources

Electrical machines are not as powerful as pneumatic or hydraulic systems. They are bulkier and heavier than them too. But they have three main advantages over pneumatic and hydraulic systems:

Electric machines can be run in a variety of speed. They can be built in mass product manner and they can simply be optimized.

Output parameters of electrical machines

As there is a lot of progress is made in electrical equipment, measuring power, digital signal, informatic and control signals has been developed rapidly. By controlling these machines, it is easy to control output factors such as speed, voltage, current, torque, …

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