Abstract
Large synchronous generators are the heart of the modern world, while producing the vast majority of the electric power consumed globally. Although they are robust devices, they are prone to degradation and failure. If such failures are not detected at an early stage, then the negative impact may be catastrophic in terms of financial costs, repair times, human lives and quality of life. This is the reason for continuous research in the field of condition monitoring aiming towards the reliable operation of synchronous generators. This paper proposes a novel technique for the diagnosis of the static eccentricity in synchronous generators. The proposed approach is off-line and non-intrusive, allowing the estimation of the fault severity with stator current measurements only. The performed work has been carried out with Finite Element Simulations and extensive experimental testing.
Highlights
Electrical machines condition monitoring is a scientific area that includes two individual areas, namely the fault diagnosis and fault prognosis
Regarding the fault diagnosis in electrical machines, the literature is very rich, most papers deal with induction motors due to their importance for industrial applications
Synchronous generators are very critical devices and are typically much larger than induction motors so if a catastrophic failure happens to them, it can lead to huge financial losses and other negative impacts
Summary
Electrical machines condition monitoring is a scientific area that includes two individual areas, namely the fault diagnosis and fault prognosis. The radial and tangential forces are known to increase in the presence of eccentricity conditions [7] It has been presented in reference [8] that variation of the air-gap magnetic reluctance will generate eddy currents in the rotor damping cage, even at unloaded operation [8]. Focusing on the actual diagnosis of the eccentricity fault in synchronous machines, it is clear that most past works focus on either permanent magnet [10,11,12,13] or reluctance machines [14,15,16], while literature is very limited for salient pole ones Despite this unequal research effort, some contributions have been identified and are listed here. The proposed method can be applied in any 3-phase wound rotor synchronous generator, since it relies on the impact of saturation inflicted by the static eccentricity fault. Its value on the discrimination of the static eccentricity fault from the mixed eccentricity conditions typically monitored by other on-line methods is profound, since it will suggest a more accurate maintenance plan by technical crews
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