Development of an induction motor condition monitoring test rig And fault detection strategies

Includes bibliographical references.This thesis sets out to develop an induction motor condition monitoring test rig to experimentally simulate the common faults associated with induction motors and to develop strategies for detecting these faults that employ signal processing techniques. Literature on basic concepts of induction motors and inverter drives, the phenomena of common faults associated with induction motors, the condition monitoring systems were intensively reviewed

Motor Fault Diagnosis Using Higher Order Statistical Analysis of Motor Power Supply Parameters

Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) has been an effective method to monitor electrical machines for many years, predominantly because of its low instrumentation cost, remote implementation and comprehensive information contents. However, it has shortages of low accuracy and efficiency in resolving weak signals from incipient faults, such as detecting early stages of induction motor fault. In this thesis MCSA has been improved to accurately detect electrical and mechanical faults in the induction motor namely broken rotor bars, stator faults and motor bearing faults. Motor current signals corresponding to a healthy (baseline) and faulty condition on induction motor at different loads (zero, 25%, 50% and 75% of full load) were rearranged and the baseline current data were examined using conventional methods in frequency domain and referenced for comparison with new modulation signal bispectrum. Based on the fundamental modulation effect of the weak fault signatures, a new method based on modulation signal bispectrum (MSB) analysis is introduced to characterise the modulation and hence for accurate quantification of the signatures. This method is named as (MSB-SE). For broken rotor bar(BRB), the results show that MSB-SE suggested in this research outperforms conventional bispectrum CB significantly for all cases due its high performance of nonlinear modulation detection and random noise suppression, which demonstrates that MSB-SE is an outstanding technique whereas (CB) is inefficient for motor current signal analysis [1] . Moreover the new estimators produce more accurate results at zero, 25%, 50%, 75% of full load and under broken rotor bar, compared with power spectrum analysis. Especially it can easily separate the half BRB at a load as low as 25% from baseline where PS would not produce a correct separation. In case of stator faults, a MSB-SE is investigated to detect different severities of stator faults for both open and short circuit. It shows that MSB-SE has the capability to accurately estimate modulation degrees and suppress the random and non-modulation components. Test results show that MSB-SE has a better performance in differentiating spectrum amplitudes due to stator faults and hence produces better diagnosis performance, compared with that of power spectrum (PS). For motor bearing faults, tests were performed with three bearing conditions: baseline, outer race fault and inner race fault. Because the signals associated with faults produce small modulations to supply component and high noise levels, MSB-SE is used to detect and diagnose different motor bearing defects. The results show that bearing faults can induce detectable amplitude increases at its characteristic frequencies. MSB-SE peaks show a clear difference at these frequencies whereas the conventional power spectrum provides change evidences only at some of the frequencies. This shows that MSB has a better and reliable performance in detecting small changes from the faulty bearing for fault detection and diagnosis. In addition, the study also shows that current signals from motors with variable frequency drive controller have too much noise and it is unlikely to discriminate the small bearing fault component. This research also applies a mathematical model for the simulation of current signals under healthy and broken bars condition in order to further understand the characteristics of fault signature to ensure the methodologies used and accuracy achieved in the detection and diagnosis results. The results show that the frequency spectrum of current signal outputs from the model take the expected form with peaks at the sideband frequency and associated harmonics

Electrical and magnetic faults diagnosis in permanent magnet synchronous motors

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are an alternative in critical applications where high-speed operation, compactness and high efficiency are required. In these applications it is highly desired to dispose of an on-line, reliable and cost-effective fault diagnosis method. Fault prediction and diagnosis allows increasing electric machines performance and raising their lifespan, thus reducing maintenance costs, while ensuring optimum reliability, safe operation and timely maintenance. Consequently this thesis is dedicated to the diagnosis of magnetic and electrical faults in PMSMs. As a first step, the behavior of a healthy machine is studied, and with this aim a new 2D finite element method (FEM) modelbased system for analyzing surface-mounted PSMSs with skewed rotor magnets is proposed. It is based on generating a geometric equivalent non-skewed permanent magnet distribution which accounts for the skewed distribution of the practical rotor, thus avoiding 3D geometries and greatly reducing the computational burden of the problem. To diagnose demagnetization faults, this thesis proposes an on-line methodology based on monitoring the zero-sequence voltage component (ZSVC). Attributes of the proposed method include simplicity, very low computational burden and high sensibility when compared with the well known stator currents analysis method. A simple expression of the ZSVC is deduced, which can be used as a fault indicator parameter. Furthermore, mechanical effects arising from demagnetization faults are studied. These effects are analyzed by means of FEM simulations and experimental tests based on direct measurements of the shaft trajectory through self-mixing interferometry. For that purpose two perpendicular laser diodes are used to measure displacements in both X and Y axes. Laser measurements proved that demagnetization faults may induce a quantifiable deviation of the rotor trajectory. In the case of electrical faults, this thesis studies the effects of resistive unbalance and stator winding inter-turn short-circuits in PMSMs and compares two methods for detecting and discriminating both faults. These methods are based on monitoring and analyzing the third harmonic component of the stator currents and the first harmonic of the ZSVC. Finally, the Vold-Kalman filtering order tracking algorithm is introduced and applied to extract selected harmonics related to magnetic and electrical faults when the machine operates under variable speed and different load levels. Furthermore, different fault indicators are proposed and their behavior is validated by means of experimental data. Both simulation and experimental results show the potential of the proposed methods to provide helpful and reliable data to carry out a simultaneous diagnosis of resistive unbalance and stator winding inter-turn faults

Advanced Power Loss Modeling and Model-Based Control of Three-Phase Induction Motor Drive Systems

Three-phase induction motor (IM) drive systems are the most important workhorses of many industries worldwide. This dissertation addresses improved modeling of three-phase IM drives and model-based control algorithms for the purpose of designing better IM drive systems. Enhancements of efficiency, availability, as well as performance of IMs, such as maximum torque-per-ampere capability, power density, and torque rating, are of major interest. An advanced power loss model of three-phase IM drives is proposed and comprehensively validated at different speed, load torque, flux and input voltage conditions. This model includes a core-loss model of three-phase IMs, a model of machine mechanical and stray losses, and a model of power electronic losses in inverters. The drive loss model shows more than 90% accuracy and is used to design system-level loss minimization control of a motor drive system, which is integrated with the conventional volts-per-hertz control and indirect field-oriented control as case studies. The designed loss minimization control leads to more than 13% loss reduction than using rated flux for the testing motor drive under certain conditions. The proposed core-loss model is also used to design an improved model-based maximum torque-per-ampere control of IMs by considering core losses. Significant increase of torque-per-ampere capability could be possible for high-speed IMs. A simple model-based time-domain fault diagnosis method of four major IM faults is provided; it is nonintrusive, fast, and has excellent fault sensitivity and robustness to noise and harmonics. A fault-tolerant control scheme for sensor failures in closed-loop IM drives is also studied, where a multi-controller drive is proposed and uses different controllers with minimum hand-off transients when switching between controllers. A finite element analysis model of medium-voltage IMs is explored, where electromagnetic and thermal analyses are co-simulated. The torque rating and power density of the simulated machine could be increased by 14% with proper change of stator winding insulation material. The outcome of this dissertation is an advanced three-phase IM drive that is enhanced using model-based loss minimization control, fault detection and diagnosis of machine faults, fault-tolerant control under sensor failures, and performance-enhancement suggestions

Advances in the Field of Electrical Machines and Drives

Electrical machines and drives dominate our everyday lives. This is due to their numerous applications in industry, power production, home appliances, and transportation systems such as electric and hybrid electric vehicles, ships, and aircrafts. Their development follows rapid advances in science, engineering, and technology. Researchers around the world are extensively investigating electrical machines and drives because of their reliability, efficiency, performance, and fault-tolerant structure. In particular, there is a focus on the importance of utilizing these new trends in technology for energy saving and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This Special Issue will provide the platform for researchers to present their recent work on advances in the field of electrical machines and drives, including special machines and their applications; new materials, including the insulation of electrical machines; new trends in diagnostics and condition monitoring; power electronics, control schemes, and algorithms for electrical drives; new topologies; and innovative applications

Advances in Electrical Machine, Power Electronic, and Drive Condition Monitoring and Fault Detection: State of the Art

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] Recently, research concerning electrical machines and drives condition monitoring and fault diagnosis has experienced extraordinarily dynamic activity. The increasing importance of these energy conversion devices and their widespread use in uncountable applications have motivated significant research efforts. This paper presents an analysis of the state of the art in this field. The analyzed contributions were published in most relevant journals and magazines or presented in either specific conferences in the area or more broadly scoped events.Riera-Guasp, M.; Antonino-Daviu, J.; Capolino, G. (2015). Advances in Electrical Machine, Power Electronic, and Drive Condition Monitoring and Fault Detection: State of the Art. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. 62(3):1746-1759. doi:10.1109/TIE.2014.2375853S1746175962

The Monitoring of Induction Machines Using Electrical Signals from the Variable Speed Drive

Induction motors are the most widely used industrial prime movers, mainly because of their simple yet powerful construction, ergonomic adaptability, rugged and highly robust structure combined with high reliability. However, under extreme and complex operations, such motors are subject to premature faults, which can be more significant when variable speed drive (VSDs) are used, due to the presence of more voltage harmonics, spikes and increases in operating temperature. In addition, VSD based systems also cause more noise in measured instantaneous current signals. These make it more difficult to investigate and accurately diagnose system faults in order to keep VSD based motors operating at an optimal level and avoid excessive energy consumption and damage to system. However, insufficient work has been carried out exploring fault diagnosis using terminal voltage and motor current signals of VSD motors which are increasingly used in industry. To fill these gaps, this thesis investigates the detection of stator and rotor faults (i.e. shorted turn faults, open-circuit faults, broken rotor bars, and stator winding asymmetry combined with broken rotor bar faults) using electrical signals from VSDs under different loads and different speeds conditions. Evaluation results show that under open loop control mode, both stator and rotor faults cause an increase in the amplitude of sidebands of the motor current signature. However, no changes were found that could be used for fault detection in the motor voltage signature with respect to open loop control mode. This is because, when the drive is in open-loop operation, there is no feedback to the drive and torque oscillations modulate the motor current only. The V/Hz ratio is kept constant even when the slip changes either due to the load or the fault. On the other hand, the increase in the sideband amplitude can be observed in both the current and voltage signals under the sensorless control mode with the voltage spectrum demonstrating a slightly better performance than the motor current spectrum, because the VSD regulates the voltage to adapt changes in the electromagnetic torque caused by the faults. The comparative results between current and voltage spectra under both control modes show that the sensorless control gives more reliable diagnosis. In order to monitor the condition of electrical drives accuratly and effectively, demodulation analysis such as modulation signal bispectrum (MSB) of the electrical signals from the VSDs has been explored extensively in this thesis to detect and diagnose different motor faults. MSB analysis has been shown to provide good noise reduction, and more accurate and reliable diagnosis. It gives a more correct indication of the fault severity and fault location for all operating conditions. This study also examines detecting and diagnosing the effect of an asymmetric stator winding combined with broken rotor bar (BRB) faults under the sensorless operation mode. It examines the effectiveness of conventional diagnostic features in both motor current and voltage signals using power spectrum (PS) and MSB analysis. The obtained results show that the combined fault causes an additional increase in the sideband amplitude and this increase can be observed in both the current and voltage signals. The MSB diagnosis based on the voltage signals is more sensitive to detect motor faults at lower loads compared with that of current signals. Moreover, this research presented a new method based on MSB sideband estimation (MSB-SE). It is shown that using MSB-SE, the sidebands due to weak fault signatures can be quantified more accurately, which results in more consistent detection and accurate diagnosis of the fault severity

On the identifiability, parameter identification and fault diagnosis of induction machines

PhD ThesisDue to their reliability and low cost, induction machines have been widely utilized in a large variety of industrial applications. Although these machines are rugged and reliable, they are subjected to various stresses that might result in some unavoidable parameter changes and modes of failures. A common practice in induction machine parameter identification and fault diagnosis techniques is to employ a machine model and use the external measurements of voltage, current, speed, and/or torque in model solution. With this approach, it might be possible to get an infinite number of mathematical solutions representing the machine parameters, depending on the employed machine model. It is therefore crucial to investigate such possibility of obtaining incorrect parameter sets, i.e. to test the identifiability of the model before being used for parameter identification and fault diagnosis purposes. This project focuses on the identifiability of induction machine models and their use in parameter identification and fault diagnosis. Two commonly used steady-states induction machine models namely T-model and inverse Γ- model have been considered in this thesis. The classical transfer function and bond graph identifiability analysis approaches, which have been previously employed for the T-model, are applied in this thesis to investigate the identifiability of the inverse Γ-model. A novel algorithm, the Alternating Conditional Expectation, is employed here for the first time to study the identifiability of both the T- and inverse Γ-models of the induction machine. The results obtained from the proposed algorithm show that the parameters of the commonly utilised Tmodel are non-identifiable while those of the inverse Γ-model are uniquely identifiable when using external measurements. The identifiability analysis results are experimentally verified by the particle swarm optimization and Levenberg-Marquardt model-based parameter identification approaches developed in this thesis. To overcome the non-identifiability problem of the T-model, a new technique for induction machine parameter estimation from external measurements based on a combination of the induction machine’s T- and inverse Γ-models is proposed. Results for both supply-fed and inverter-fed operations show the success of the technique in identifying the parameters of the machine using only readily available measurements of steady-state machine current, voltage and speed, without the need for extra hardware. ii A diagnosis scheme to detect stator winding faults in induction machines is also proposed in this thesis. The scheme uses time domain features derived from 3-phase stator currents in conjunction with particle swarm optimization algorithm to check characteristic parameters of the machine and detect the fault accordingly. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed technique has been evaluated for different common faults including interturn short-circuit, stator winding asymmetry (increased resistance in one or more stator phases) and combined faults, i.e. a mixture of stator winding asymmetry and interturn short-circuit. Results show the accuracy of the proposed technique and it is ability to detect the presence of the fault and provide information about its type and location. Extensive simulations using Matlab/SIMULINK and experimental tests have been carried out to verify the identifiability analysis and show the effectiveness of the proposed parameter identification and fault diagnoses schemes. The constructed test rig includes a 1.1 kW threephase test induction machine coupled to a dynamometer loading unit and driven by a variable frequency inverter that allows operation at different speeds. All the experiment analyses provided in the thesis are based on terminal voltages, stator currents and rotor speed that are usually measured and used in machine control.Libya, through the Engineering Faculty of Misurata- Misurata Universit