Search-Coil Based Stator Interturn Fault Detection in Permanent Magnet Machines Running under Dynamic Condition

Abstract

Interturn short circuit (ITSC) fault is a common fault in electric machines, which may severely damage the machines if no protective measure is taken in time. There are numerous fault diagnosis methods under a steady-state condition. However, there is relatively limited research on fault diagnosis under dynamic conditions. The dynamic operation of motors, such as in electric cars, is a very common scenario. Hence, this paper proposes a search-coil based online method for detecting ITSC fault in permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) under a dynamic condition. The search coils are placed on the stator circumference at equal intervals. Each search coil reflects the information about the magnetic field in its vicinity and also contains the fault information. In this paper, the voltage induced by the odd sideband harmonics around the even carrier (2ωc±ω0) is selected as the fault characteristic to be used in effectively improving the detected signal-to-noise ratio by excluding the interference of the counter-potential of the permanent magnet. Since two adjacent search coils are placed one pole apart, a set of quadrature signals can be acquired. The Digital Lock-In Amplifier (DLIA) technology is applied to extract the amplitude of the characteristic voltage, which overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional spectrum analysis in applying to non-stationary conditions. The amplitudes of the voltage at different search coils can be compared to further determine the occurrence of a fault and also its rough location if occurred. Experiments were conducted with a six-phase PMSM for demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method. The obtained results show that the proposed method can accurately determine the occurrence of a fault.