Active Damping of Torsional Vibrations Due to the Sub-Harmonic Instability on a Synchronous Generator

Sub-harmonic stability issues due to the interaction between a load-commutated motor drive and a synchronous turbo-generator train in a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) station are studied in this paper. The sub-harmonic current injected by motor drives may excite the mechanical torsional modes of turbo-generator train. In this paper, the electro-mechanical interaction phenomenon is investigated and an active damper is proposed to absorb the sub-harmonic currents of motor drives and increase the damping of the electro-mechanical system. Simulations and experiments validate the instability problem and effectiveness of the proposed solution.