What is a DC Shunt Motor?

Typically a DC Motor is a motor that works on direct current supply. A DC motor is made up of two main parts namely, magnetic field system and an armature. Now when we talk about DC Shunt Motor, it is the motor where the armature winding and the field winding are connected in parallel. Basically, it gets the name shunt motor because of the placement of components in this kind of motor. To understand it better let us see the construction and operation of DC Shunt Motor.

Construction of DC Shunt Motor

Here is the circuit diagram of DC Shunt Motor

In this circuit we can see how the armature winding is placed in parallel with respect to field winding. The basic circuit construction includes a DC power source which will produce DC current, a winding field and an armature which is connected in parallel through a wire. Not that the shunt field winding has comparatively a large number of turns with high resistance compared to the armature winding. This is the construction of DC Shunt Motor. The armature is important since it interacts with the magnetic field to produce energy.

Operation of DC Shunt Motor

To understand the working of DC Shunt Motor, see that the armature and the winding are placed in parallel. Initially the DC motor is turned on and power flows through both armature and winding. Due to the parallel circuit, we can say that the voltage developed in field winding is equal to the armature voltage. This is based on the properties of parallel circuit. Voltage and current across the shunt winding remains constant due to which DC shunt motor operates at constant speed. Now the current splits between the armature and the winding in a way that voltage developed across both of them remains same. Due to this current in shunt field ,a constant magnetic field is generated which remain unaffected by the armature current.

This generated magnetic field then interacts with the current-carrying conductors in the armature. The interaction between the armature and magnetic field generates a mechanical torque which results in the rotation of the rotor. The direction of this torque can be calculated using Fleming’s left-hand rule. Note that the direction of the torque is such that it tries to match armature’s magnetic field and the magnetic field of field winding. This is how mechanical energy is generated form electrical energy.

DC Series Motor and DC Shunt Motor form an integral part of the modern-day electronics industry. We know that there are two types of motors that can be used to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. While one uses AC for it, the other uses DC for it.

In this article, we will study the motor that uses DC to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. Even when dealing with DC motors, we can divide them into certain types like Series DC Motor, Shunt/Parallel DC Motor, Compound DC Motors, and Permanent Magnet DC Motor.

In this article, we will focus on Series DC Motor and Shunt DC Motor. We will see the construction and working of each of these types of DC motors and we will try to analyze the differences between the two. After comparing their work, we will study the Advantages and Disadvantages of the two types of motors.

Later we will study which applications require which kind of motor. The article concludes with some frequently asked questions that readers can refer to.