Armature reaction

Armature reaction

In a unloaded d.c machine armature current is vanishingly small and the flux per pole is decided by the field current alone. The uniform distribution of the lines of force get upset when armature too carries current due to loading. In one half of the pole, flux lines are concentrated and in the other half they are rarefied. Qualitatively one can argue that during loading condition flux per pole will remain same as in no load operation because the increase of flux in one half will be balanced by the decrease in the flux in the other half. Since it is the flux per pole which decides the emf generated and the torque produced by the machine, seemingly there will be no effect felt so far as the performance of the machine is concerned due to armature reaction. This in fact is almost true when the machine is lightly or moderately loaded

However at rated armature current the increase of flux in one half of the pole is rather less than the decrease in the other half due to presence of saturation. In other words there will be a net decrease in flux per pole during sufficient loading of the machine. This will have a direct bearing on the emf as well as torque developed affecting the performance of the machine.

Apart from this, due to distortion in the flux distribution, there will be some amount of flux present along the q-axis (brush axis) of the machine. This causes commutation difficult. In the following sections we try to explain armature reaction in somewhat detail considering motor and generator mode separately.