Analysis of Slot Leakage Reactance of Submersible Motor with Closed Slots during Starting Transient Operation

Generally, closed slots are adopted to reduce the water friction loss in both the stator and the rotor of water filling submersible motor due to the special environment of operation. One of the obvious differences between the traditional induction motors and water filling submersible motors is that the submersible motors only need relatively smaller starting torque. This paper aims to analyze the slot leakage reactance of water filling submersible motor during starting transient operation. An improved analytical method which considered the magnetic saturation of the slot bridge and the skin effect of rotor bars is proposed. The slot permeance factor which has a direct impact on the slot leakage reactance is calculated. Then finite element models with different stator slot types are constructed and search coils are introduced to measure the slot flux linkage. Moreover, the starting performances of the models with two typical stator slots are compared and the flux leakage characteristics are obtained. Finally, the results obtained by finite element method are very close to the results obtained by analytical method.