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This paper examines ac motor shaft voltages and resulting bearing currents when operated under pulse width modulation (PWM) voltage source inverters. The paper reviews the electrical characteristics of bearings and motors that cause shaft voltages and bearing currents. A brief review of previous work is presented, including a system model for electrical analysis of bearing currents. Relying on the work of a companion paper, the propensity for electric discharge machining (EDM) is determined by a design equation that is a function of system components. Pertinent machine parameters and their formulas are presented and values calculated for machines from 5 to 1000 hp. The effects of system elements on shaft voltages and bearing currents are evaluated experimentally and the results compared to theory. Finally, the paper will present quantitative results for one solution to the shaft voltage and bearing current problem. Index Terms - Bearing capacitance ([C.sub.b]), bearing current ([I.sub.b]), bearing threshold voltage ([V.sub.th]), bearing voltage ratio (BVR), electric discharge machining (EDM), electrostatic shielded induction motor (ESIM), rotor shaft to ground voltage ([V.sub.rg]), stator to rotor capacitance ([C.sub.sr]).

Modern power inverters provide the industrial control industry with significant advantages. The faster switching devices have increased drive performance, but with some recently discovered disadvantages. One disadvantage, rotor shaft voltage and resulting bearing current, has become an industry concern. The oil film in a bearing acts as a capacitor and provides a charging mechanism for rotor shaft voltage buildup. Electrical breakdown of the film can damage the bearing. This paper examines the mechanical and electrical characteristics of the bearing and converts them into models. The mechanical model for the bearing contact area establishes an allowable bearing current density, which is used to estimate the electrical life of a mechanical bearing. The electrical model for the bearing provides a significant advancement, aids bearing design, and the analysis of electrically induced bearing damage. Finally, the paper presents quantitative results for one solution to the shaft voltage and bearing current problem. Index Terms - Bearing capacitance, bearing current, bearing current density, bearing threshold voltage, electric discharge machining, electrostatic shielded induction motor, rotor shaft-to-ground voltage, stator-to-rotor capacitance.

The present paper deals with oil droplet flow phenomena in aero engine bearing chambers. An experimental investigation of droplet sizes and velocities utilizing a Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) has been performed for the first time in bearing chamber atmospheres under real engine conditions. Influences of high rotational speeds are discussed for individual droplet size classes. Although this is an important contribution to a better understanding of the droplet flow impact on secondary air/oil system performance, an analysis of the droplet flow behavior requires an incorporation of numerical methods because detailed measurements as performed here suffer from both strong spatial limitations with respect to the optical accessibility in real engine applications and constraints due to the extremely time-consuming nature of an experimental flow field analysis. Therefore, further analysis is based on numerical methods. Droplets characterized within the experiments are exposed to the flow field of the gaseous phase predicted by use of our well-known CFD code EPOS. The droplet trajectories and velocities are calculated within a Lagrangian frame of reference by forward numerical integration of the particle momentum equation. This paper has been initiated rather to show a successful method of bearing chamber droplet flow analysis by a combination of droplet sizing techniques and numerical approaches than to present field values as a function of all operating parameters. However, a first insight into the complex droplet flow phenomena is given and specific problems in bearing chamber heat transfer are related to the droplet flow.