Detection of Rotor Faults in Synchronous

Generators
M. Kiani, Student Member, W-J. Lee, Fellow IEEE, R. Kenarangui, Member IEEE and B. Fahimi, Senior
Member IEEE
Abstract Synchronous generators are subject to a variety of
failures which may occur in various parts of their structure.
Furthermore, these faults may be categorized as partial failure or
catastrophic faults. One may note that most partial faults cang
eventually result in a permanent lack of service. The present
digest deals with a class of failures which may happen in the
rotor of a turbo-generator. These faults include electrical failures
in the field winding and mechanical faults in the form of dynamic
eccentricity. Since the electromechanical conversion of energy is
closely related to magnetic response of the machine any
alteration of the excitation and geometry will result in detectable
changes in stator quantities such as no-load voltage. The present
digest is based on a detailed analysis of the electromagnetic
response of a two pole turbo generator under various types of
rotor faults. In the first step existence of detectable time-domain
signatures have been investigated. Next, uniqueness of these
signatures is studied. In the last part, a systematic method for
just-in-time detection and classification of various rotor faults
has been developed. Finite element analysis has been used for this Fig. 1 Rotor of the targeted synchronous generator (Courtesy Ameren Utility
study. Co.)

I. INTRODUCTION II. CLASSIFICATION OF FAULTS IN SYNCHRONOUS

Reliable and efficient generation of electricity presents a
profound and undeniable impact on almost every aspect of the
modem life. Although over the past few decades substantial
milestones in electrification of the human's life has been
achieved, development, maintenance, and improvement of
performance in generation of electricity seems to be taken as
granted. As the quest for consumption of reliable electricity
with an affordable price continues, development of an
advanced monitoring mechanism and detection scheme in the
event of failures deserves a due attention. In view of the recent
nationwide blackouts, high fuel prices, and security concerns,
there has been a renewed attention to the survivability and
efficiency of the generation and transmission of electricity. To
this quest, condition monitoring
address
addressthsqet
.odtorotor oioigo
generators due to possible
of the
h synchronous
ycrnu
faults have been chosen as an
objective in this digest. Figure 1 illustrates the rotor of a
synchronous generator that has been selected for this
investigation.
l ~~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~i tim or frqunc@ domain?
^ i
GENERATORS
Figure 2 illustrates a summary of the most frequently
occurring faults in the stator and rotor of a synchronous
generator. The focus of the present digest is primarily on the
faults that may occur in the rotor circuit. The main rotor faults
comprise of electrical short circuits in the form of inter-turn
faults and inter-slot faults which in essence will create an
asymmetry in the no-load magnetic field caused by the field
current. This in turn results in additional distortions in induced
stator voltages. Once the stator is loaded, the magneto-motive
force of the stator will contribute to the faulty situation and
hence it is expected to observe time/frequency domain
signatures in the stator voltage and current waveforms.
Mechanical faults such as thos
Mcanica faultsisuch
as introduced bby dynamic and
those itdc
e yna and
static eccentricity, and bendmig of the rotor can also
significantly alter the operational parameters of the
synchronous generator, thereby creating distortions in the
rotating field of the airgap and hence inducing distinct
time/frequency domain signatures in the stator winding. Like
any fault detection and diagnostic method, it is extremely
important to address the following two questions in the event
of a failure:
1. Has the particular fault resulted in measurable signatures
}S

1-4244-1 062-2/07/$25.OO ©2007 IEEE 266

* Dynamic rotor eccentricity.
* Inter-turn short circuit in one rotor slot.
* Inter-slot short circuit in the field winding.
* Hybrid fault formed by inter-slot and inter-turn short
circuit.
Faults in Synchronous
Generators

interturtn Intet4sIbt Rdy

Roto b

(b)
Fig.3 Distribution of the field current under no-load condition (a) and details
Multi- phase Single phase saturati of one rotor slot (b)
Short circuit Short circuit

As the first step in validation of the model the no-load

Fig. 2 Summary of frequently occurring faults in synchronous generators characteristic of the targeted synchronous machine was
studied. In order to accomplish this goal, the rotor was rotated
III. FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING OF ROTOR FAULTS at the synchronous speed of 3600 [r.p.m.] while the field
winding was excited with a dc current of 200 A/conductor.
The 675 MVA targeted turbo-generator is comprised of a Cr a ie otemgiueo h lxdniyi aiu
two pole cylindrical rotor and a double-layered stator housing partsoten stor roo structueto densuth is no
a three phase winding with sinusoidal distribution. Magnetic
parts of the stator and rotor structure to ensure that there iS no
* ~~~local or bulk saturation. It must be noted that the direction of
characteristics of the M-45 laminations were assumed for the the current was selected such that half of the rotor slots carry
stator and rotor. Stator winding is a double-layered parallel the current inside while the other half present an opposite
winding that is wye connected. Stator has 42 slots with two polarity. Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of the flux density
bars per slot. Winding package consists of 72 copper strands throughout the machine under the no-load condition and at an
per half coil, insulated and formed in a 6 x 12 pattern. (6 arbitrary rotor position. As can be observed there is no
strands wide). Every 3rd strand is hollow for cooling. The saturation in any parts of the machine and formation of two
rotor of the targeted machine is solid and is not laminated. magnetic poles can be easily noticed. The Finite Element (FE)
Rotor is designed to form a two pole cylindrical modelicopores man d Tie vin it ation
construction. It contains 8 . Th ere a turnson which is adequate for this analysis. Special care was given to
Coil #1, 7 turns on coils 2-8. This accumulates to a total of 54 the quality of the two-dimensional mesh to avoid triangular
turns per pole. Using this and some additional information a ements withe
elements with large aspectmratio. mila mo
aspect ratio. Similar models for for vrious
various
geometry was designed and stored in the CAD part of the fault scenarios was developed and used for analysis. To obtain
program Magnet (C Infolytica). Damper windings have not an adequate accuracy a time step of 0.1 msec was selected.
been included in this transient model as steady state no-load This corresponds to 166 samples within each electrical cycle
operation of the machine has been targeted and sub-transient (16.6 msec or 60 Hz).
phenomenon are not the focus of the present study. The airgap Shaded Plot
fBI smoothd
length is set at 2 cm. Figure 3 illustrates the configuration of 1 lom
1248267
the field winding and details of one rotor slot as used in the 181

finite element model. The individual strands in each rotor slot 263

have been modeled separately so an inter-turn and inter-slot

short circuit(all conductors within a slot are shorted) can be
studied.//
Plot~~~~~~~~~~ Shaded

50916726
 IV. TIME/FREQUENCY DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF TUE x 104
RESULTS 1.5 o
| Line voltage
i
ll
I I

The targeted faulty conditions include; (a) dynamic rotor - 1

eccentricity with a shifty of rotor center by 500 of the air gap rI oil-la'
length, (b) inter-turn short circuit, (c) inter-slot short circuit, --
5 0.5
and (d) hybrid fault comprised of inter-slot and inter-turn short 0 --..
circuits. Figure 5(b) depicts the time domain response of the vI t< I
healthy and faulty synchronous generators over one electrical C --- -
cycle. These results have been obtained using transient FE-18-b1 - l
analysis. Once the frequency response of the signals is -1 --=-----1
computed, they will be compared to those from the healthy
machine. It is intended to introduce detectable signatures that -1.5 101 2
20 30
30 4
40 50 5 60
can be used to uniquely identify the targeted failures. time[msec]
Figure 5 illustrates the magnetic field distribution throughout Fig. 6 Induced voltages in two stator coils and overall phase voltage
the stator and rotor for the rated value of the field current at a
fixed instant of time for the healthy machine as well as 3 Figure 7(a) illustrates the analysis process in which the
various cases of faults(All models have started from an induced no-load voltages (line to neutral voltages) are
identical initial position) under no-load condition. analyzed. This information is used to compute the frequency
spectrum of each case. In order to achieve this goal, the
[Shld.d Mtf Mt*
Shd*
respective signals over one full electrical cycle have been used
to compute the Fourier coefficients and their energy spectrum.
Development of the FE
/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Model

Extraction of no-load
voltage and coil current

(a) healthy machine (b)eccentric machine Calculation of

16 -11btrd IB -6th)d |Frequency Spectrum

(c ) inter-turn short (d) inter-slot shortm

Fig. 5 distribution ofthe magnetic flux density for healthy and faulty
conditions r

Although magnitude of the flux density exhibits (a)

differences in each case (as compared to the healthy machine), x 10 H
to obtain a quantitative measure the no-load voltages induced I*5 I * Heathy
in the stator phase was used. In order to compute the no-load - C r
0.5 -----1
e t - uI d
-
stator phase voltage the induced voltages in individual coils of -- - - H r(tult
the statorwer calculated andadded inta-vector form. Figuret6 o 5 LI
I
AI
I
Eccentr c

depicts the induced voltages for two individual coils as well as Hedthy
the overall phase voltage in one stator phase. Itmust benoted 570.5O +II J Sh rtur
that the stator windindigis comprised of a double layer of H

configuration n which each layer contains several coils6 I I I I I

distributed around the circumference developing a sinusoidala le I I I I
distribution. Due to a relatively low number of stator slots, -1 - 0.
there exists significant space harmonics. The double layer
form of the stator winding allows for circulation of an electric 1. 6 8 10 12 11 16 18 20 2
current even under no-load condition. If this current can be time[msec]
measured, it would contain time/frequency domain signatures (b)
that can be effectively used for detection of the rotor failures. Fig. 7 (a) general outline for fault detection (b) no-load voltages obtained
from various fault conditions

268
 An inspection of figure 7(b) indicates that there are 300 - - - - - - - - - -Hl - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7-
- -- ---

tangible differences, in time domain, between the no-load Eccentric

voltages of a healthy and a faulty generator. One can note that 250 - t t -------

due to distinguishable differences in the time domain the

extent of resulting harmonics will present detectable 200---
differences in the frequency domain. Figure 8(a) depicts the
frequency spectrum of the various cases over a 500Hz band 1
width. As can be seen, there is a substantial fundamental 21th
harmonic for all the cases. However, significant differences Harmonic
can be observed at higher harmonics. For instance, figure 8(b) 100
represents a zoomed version of the frequency response of the
healthy generator along with those from the eccentric machine. 50 -----
One can note a very tangible difference between the 21st 1 | nl Ii lii'
harmonics as highlighted in the figure. The metric used for 0 I J1
ii I ii 11 I ii L I 1
comparison between the healthy and faulty machine has the 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 20C
following general format: Frequency[Hz]
N Fig. 8 (b) Comparison of the frequency response of a healthy and an eccentric
X -Zwjk (S(flk )S(fj,k ))2, j = 1,2,3,4,5 ()case
V. ANALYSIS OF VARIOUS FAULTS IN FREQUENCY
k=1
In which the j, k, and N represent the case of the model (i.e. DOMAIN
j=l, healthy machine, j=2, eccentric machine, etc.), order of The first faulty condition refers to dynamic eccentricity of
the harmonic, and the number of harmonics included in the the rotor. A 50°0 reduction of the airgap length has been
study and "S" represents the magnitude of the spectrum for chosen for this study. Accordingly the center of the rotor has
selected frequency. It must be noted that the weighting been shifted from that of the stator. A close study of the time
domain distribution of the no-load voltage in figure 7(b)
factor, Wjk, will be selected suchthatspecificfirequency
suggests that the differences between the healthy and eccentric
harmonics that represent significant difference for an specific generators are mostly in higher order harmonics and the low
type of fault will be more apparent in the final outcome of the frequency behaviors of the machines are quite similar. There
comparison. For instance in a comparison between the is a possibility to observe more detectable signatures within
frequency spectrums of a healthy and an eccentric generator the load current as the magneto-motive force of the stator will
the 21st harmonics will have a larger weighting factor as also be influenced by the location of the rotor. A further study
compared to the first harmonics. of the frequency spectrum of the no-load voltages indicates
the same trend. The first detectable difference is observed at
000 ________________________________________ 1080 Hz (18th harmonic) and continues to be the case for
healthy higher frequencies. This may be explained by the virtue of the
Eccentric fact that slot harmonics are mostly influenced by the rotor
10000 ---------- -short-turn eccentricity under no-load condition and hence in the targeted
short-slot geometry with 14 slots per phase, frequencies higher than 900
8000 T 1 hybrid Hz should be investigated for possible differences. Figure 9
represents a comparison of the frequency spectrum in the
healthy and eccentric machines for the frequency range of
6000 ~~~~~~~~~~~2kHz-3kHz.The difference between the respective 21st
harmonics are highlighted.
4000 -
------------------300
-----------
Healthy
M=Eccentric

0 G
0 100 200 300 400 500
f requency[Hz] 2lt
Fig. 8 (a) Frequency spectrum ofthe healthy and faulty generators 'Harmonic --

,10W 11,1, 1h1. .11, ,,.1 1

50o 111
I~~i
1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Frequency[Hz]
Fig. 9 High frequency differences between eccentric and healthy
machine

269
 The inter-turn short circuit scenario has been simulated next. The hybrid fault is formed by combining the inter-slot short
Investigation of the time domain trajectory indicates that there with an inter-turn short circuit. Figure 12 shows the frequency
are tangible differences between the no-load voltages of a spectrum of the no-load voltages in this case. As can be
healthy generator and one with inter-turn short circuit. In observed the results are very similar to the inter-turn short
specific the rising edge of the no-load voltage in a generator circuit. This requires a second layer of diagnostics to identify
with an inter-turn short circuit is sharper than that from the a distinct measure for identification ofthe hybrid fault.
healthy machine while the falling edge of the no-load voltage
represent an opposite trend. This will result in sharp
differences in the third and fifth harmonics of the no-load 2000
voltage as seen in the frequency spectrum of the signals. 1800 -
Figure 10 depicts the frequency spectrum of the no-load 1600 -__
* -- --_--_-_ -_-_--_-_-_
-

voltage for healthy and machine with inter-turn short circuit.

Differences at 180 Hz and 300Hz reflect on the above
1400 -_
-
-_--_-_-_--_-_-
-
--_-_-_
explanation. 1200 .-- -4- .-- -4- .--

* 1000 - I -

2000 1F(
I80I l
0 =Healthy E 800 -
1800 -___-L____- l_____l _ -_-
2nter-turnshort -. . _ . l I
600 - ______________________
1600 - ---r-----
-
-------------- _
1400 - -iI .
_ -I-
-- -
_ I _
~~~~~~~~~~~~200
I----
Ut
-
II ~~~~~ v .
120 I
*D 12000_ - -------- T ------l-- --------20 25 30 5
~~~~ ixx - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~150 200 250 300 350
I I-| 1lllll Fig. 12 Frequency response of the machine under hybrid fault
2 800 -- - --t-------t--------
_lllllll| I
600 - ------- --------------- In order to distinguish between various types of faults the
400 -_ * | 4lilil-4-----;-------4---___ frequency spectrum of the no-load voltage for various models
l llllll has been examined with those from the healthy machine as the
200 - - -
-
reference.
O A detailed study of the frequency pattern in the no-load line
150 200 250
freauencv[Hzl
300 350scan voltage be used to:
Fig. 10 Frequency response of the generator with inter-turn short (1) Detect an abnormal condition.
circuit (2) To identify the type of rotor failure.
In order to accomplish the second goal development of an
forfigurte 1-loadsholthges variafuntions frequency spetru extensive lookand table respective
up their that wouldimpact
includeondifferent possibility
the no-load votes sha function ofefrqn for the of the
t of the faults the magnitude of
machine with inter-slot short circuit. As one can see the vaiu hamnc isancsiy
differences between the healthy and faulted machine are not hemno-loa censithe
easily detectable from the investigation of the no-load voltages. wn g noalo busedto tect aanminin the rotor.
One may also note that there are various possibilities to define Although collectionfsalcaet le d may
an inter-slot short circuit depending on the selection of the
r Although collection of small cuffrents in large windings may
. . . . .
shorted coils. The parallel distribution of the current withn rqieseii nmeodn
shows that there exists time domain aiiis
ici and henceu frequency
u td
the shorted coils depends upon the resistance of the shorted, domain signatures that can be effectively used to detect such
path. Our study for one case of short between all conductors failures. Figure 13 illustrates the results of our FE analysis in
within a given slot shows an increase in the fundamental capturing the no-load coil currents. A detailed investigation of
component of the no-load voltage as shown in figure 11. this type of signatures using frequency spectrum or wavelet
11
12000 I Itransformation is suggested for future research.
I I healthy
* inter-slot
10000 ---* I----I
- - - - - - - -1- - - -1

8000 --- -
60 0 - -II I
4000 F _ _
X0)_ I
V * - lI
4000-- -I--l------ 0

4000 --- *- Ik___ I I_|__

~~~I I I11l
ol-~~~~ I _ 1I -1_

0 50 100 150 200 250 30

freauencvrHzl
Fig. 11 Frequency spectrum of a generator with inter-slots short
circuit

270
 2
II I ~~~~~healthy
1.5
1.5 I I ~~~~~~~~eccentric
1 - I- - - - - t - Inter-turn short
I II inter-slot short
0.5 . hybrid fault

-0.5

-2.-----1-----

-2.5 -
-I
I I I I

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
ti me[msec]
Fig. 13 No-load coil currents under various conditions

VI. CONCLUSIONS
Development of a sustainable and reliable power grid is
tightly related to efficient and continued service of
synchronous generators. Synchronous generators are prone to
a range of failures which can compromise their performance if
not detected in time. This paper has focused on specific types
of faults which may occur in the rotor of turbo-generators.
Using the information extracted from a transient FE analysis a
frequency domain detection technique for identification of a
faulty situation has been offered. The result of this study
indicates that using no-load line to neutral voltages of a
synchronous generators, one can detect and identify certain
rotor failures.

VII. REFERENCE

f]]Kim, C. E., J.K. Sykulski," Harmonic analysis of output voltage

in synchronous generator using finite element method taking
account of the movement", IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol.
38, No.2, March 2002, pp. 1249-1252.

f2] Penman, J., H. Jiang," The detection of stator and rotor winding
short circuits in synchronous generators by analyzing excitation
current harmonics", IEE Opportunities and advances in
international power engineering conference, 18-20th March 1996,
pp. 13 7-142.

f3] Shanming, W, W.Xiangheng, et. al.," Research on internal fault

of generator including saturation", Conference records of IEEE
Power Engineering Society Winter Meeting, 2000, pp. 219-222.

APPENDIX-A: MACHINE DATA

Rated power [MVA] 675
Rated frequency [Hz] 60
Rated current [A] 19486
Stator slots 42
Air gap [meters] 0.489
Field excitation [amps] 5407
Connection [double layered] Star

271