Early Detection of Broken Rotor Bars in Inverter-Fed Induction Motors Using Speed Analysis of Startup Transients

Tomas A Garcia-Calva,Vanessa Fernandez-Cavero,Daniel Morinigo-Sotelo,Rene De J Romero-Troncoso,Arturo Garcia-Perez

doi:10.3390/en14051469

Tomas A Garcia-Calva, Vanessa Fernandez-Cavero + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051469

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Abstract

The fault diagnosis of electrical machines during startup transients has received increasing attention regarding the possibility of detecting faults early. Induction motors are no exception, and motor current signature analysis has become one of the most popular techniques for determining the condition of various motor components. However, in the case of inverter powered systems, the condition of a motor is difficult to determine from the stator current because fault signatures could overlap with other signatures produced by the inverter, low-slip operation, load oscillations, and other non-stationary conditions. This paper presents a speed signature analysis methodology for a reliable broken rotor bar diagnosis in inverter-fed induction motors. The proposed fault detection is based on tracking the speed fault signature in the time-frequency domain. As a result, different fault severity levels and load oscillations can be identified. The promising results show that this technique can be a good complement to the classic analysis of current signature analysis and reveals a high potential to overcome some of its drawbacks.

Highlights

Variable speed systems where the induction motors (IMs) is driven by voltage source inverters (VSIs) are more common; they are used in a wide range of applications—namely, material handling, lifting, textile, compressors, pumps, mills, winders, and lifts [4]
This paper proposes the analysis of the rotor speed signal for the detection of broken rotor bars at incipient states in inverter-fed induction motors during the startup transient
This paper presents a new methodology for the early detection of broken rotor bars in VSI-fed induction motors based on the analysis of motor speed in the time-frequency domain

Summary

Introduction

Many papers in the literature have studied the diagnosis and condition monitoring of the IM rotor, but most only deal with machines operating at a constant speed and whole broken rotor bars. Variable speed systems where the IM is driven by voltage source inverters (VSIs) are more common; they are used in a wide range of applications—namely, material handling, lifting, textile, compressors, pumps, mills, winders, and lifts [4]. These VSIs are usually pulse width modulators (PWM)

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