1

Condition monitoring of electrical motors

Task

On-line condition monitoring methods that can be embedded in protection relays,

frequency converters or in other control devices are evaluated in this research.
Another part of the research is the development and testing of communications
between condition measuring devices and other intelligent components of industrial
environment.

Indication and analysis of electric motor faults require locally made calculations in
embedded systems as well as analysis tools running in separate computers. High
frequency data of electric, magnetic or mechanic quantities have to be calculated
locally. Many complicated tasks can be done in embedded systems such as
transformation to frequency domain, adaptive filtering or fuzzy reasoning. However,
indication of certain faults is reliable only by very complicated analysis or when
results are compared to previous results of a long period of time.

The most common motor faults with possible indications and analysis techniques are
presented in figure 1. Condition monitoring schema should include the most common
damage types of motors such as bearing faults, rotor and stator winding faults. The
most important task in year 2000 was to evaluate the practical possibilities of bearing
fault indication by the aid of a stator current measurement. The bearing fault is the
only damage group that requires vibration monitoring (that is, a device connected
directly to machine frame) if the stator current based monitoring is not applicaple.

measurements
Vibration
measurement Current Voltage Temperature Flux
measurement measurement measurement measurement

Amplitude of
current

Amplitude Frequency Multiples of

Trend analysis Accurate, Nonaccurate,
T(I) 2xsupply
1- phase 2- or 3-phase
frequency

yes yes
Charasteristic
Envelope spectrum frequencies
analysis General problem of eccentricity
indication
Charasteristic Symmetrical
Charasteristic frequencies components
no frequencies of
bearing faults Motor model

A
Charasteristic
yes frequencies of
turn-to-turn fault
2x supply Charasteristic asymmetry of
no Negative earth fault
frequency frequencies of 0-component
sequence supply
bearings

yes no
on
yes
yes Identification
algorithm (test drive)
Charasteristic
frequencies of
Charasteristic
no frequencies of no
Dynamic
asymmetry eccentricity

yes

Charasteristic
frequencies of
broken rotor bar
Phase
current 0

yes

Roller
Loose Poor
elements, Static Dynamic
Loosened Broken wire, housing lubrification
Movement of stator races, cage Dirty enclosure or
connection of motor, Loose connection of asymmetry of load Asymmetry of
winding ventilation fault Damaged rotor bar Turn-to-turn fault
misalignment wire supply
Bearing damage Asymmetry of air cap

damages

Figure 1. Flow chart of induction motor faults.

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An Evaluation of statistical approach to condition monitoring of induction motor

bearings based on stator current measurement.

A stator current measurement has an important role in a condition monitoring of

induction motors. Unbalanced rotor, rotor bar damages, damaged stator windings can
be indicated by analyses based on stator current measurement. The stator current
measurement would be sufficient as an only condition monitoring “sensor” if bearing
damages were found by analyses based on this measurement. Many promising papers
presenting methods that could be used for indication of these faults by using a stator
current measurement have been published. We have made several experiments that try
to find a relationship between an outer race defect of ball bearing and a time-
frequency representation of the stator current. Statistical methods based on a method
of Yazici [Yaz] have been used.

It is shown for example in [Sch] that a characteristic frequency of vibration caused by

bearing defect is modulated to stator current frequency and forms new current
components at frequencies
f ib = f ± m ⋅ f vb m = 1,2,3, ... (1)
where f is a frequency of a supply and fvb is a frequency of vibration. When a ball of
the bearing passes a defected spot on a race the clearance between inner and outer
race grows allowing the rotor to move radially. This radial movement changes an air
gap permeance. A rotating flux wave is affected by this change which causes the
modulation effect.

Figure 2 presents averaged power spectra of healthy and broken bearing case. 4096
point fourier-spectrum was formed by averaging 40 non-overlapped samples. No
difference between healthy and broken cases can be seen on modulated frequencies of
measured vibration frequency of 89.7 Hz.
 3

Power spectrum
60

40

20
dB

-20

-40

-60
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
frequency [Hz]

Figure 2. An averaged power spectrum of stator current. X-marked curves are values of healthy
case and solid lines are value of broken case (2 mm hole in outer race).

Fourier spectra were further analysed by calculation of Mahalanobis distance between

samples of healthy and broken case. A frequency range from 0 Hz to 473 Hz was
divided in 100 sections. In every section, the Mahalanobis distance was calculated
between two sets of samples of healthy cases and between a set of healthy and a set of
broken case. One section consists of ten separate frequencies called features. Thus,
one feature represents a frequency range of 0.47 Hz. 0.47 Hz change in vibration
frequency of outer race fault is in this case caused by approximately 11 rpm change in
rotational speed. In order to achieve reliable results, a rotational speed has to be kept
in this range during measurement and between measurements used in a set of samples.
Again no difference between healthy and broken case was found.

The stator current is a time variant signal due to the mechanical and magnetic
asymmetries and varying load. For this reason, the amplitudes of frequency
components of eq. 1 are expected to evolve with time. Vibration frequencies were
determined by acceleration measurement and envelope spectrum analysis. The
modulated frequencies were calculated by equation 1. STFT transformation of
measurements was made with time-frequency window 0.35Hz x 85ms. Two
frequencies were chosen on both sides of calculated characteristic frequency. Hence,
the estimated vibration frequency is allowed to have an error of ±0.6Hz. Standardized
distances of time-series on selected frequencies were used in order to check if
deviation on these frequencies increase with the broken bearing. Also, as in ref [Yaz],
frequencies were used to form feature vector in each time instant. Mahalanobis
distances of vectors were calculated. No statistical difference was found between
healthy and broken case.
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In addition to that, an estimation error between measured and estimated vibration

frequency caused by outer race defect of bearing was analyzed. The estimation error
between the calculated and the actual bearing frequency makes it hard to select
frequency bands for feature vectors. In this experiment, an error of 4% was found. To
cover the correct band would in this case require 29 frequency stripes of 0.3 Hz,
which in turn makes it hard to distinguish the difference between healthy and broken
case.

A feasibility of the stator current measurement as a bearing fault indicator is

questionable. At least, it is not very robust method since it is not functioning in all
conditions.

Motor level communication

The power line communications between elecrical motor and inverter has been
researched for a half year (fig 3). The motivation of research is to implement a
reliable and cheap data communication system between electrical motor and inverter.
This kind on comminication system has already several applications. For example
condition monitoring and measurement applications. During last half year properties
of motor cables has been measured and modelled with a simulation model. Also
properties of different type and size electrical motors have been measured with an
impedance analyzer. Two coupling circuits has been built and some minor
communications test has been executed (fig 4,5).

Motor Cable: 5-50 m

Communications Communications
Module Module

M Analysation Unit
Inverter,
Protection Relay
Instrumentation:
- Intelligent Vibration Meter
- Thermometer
- Parameter Database
Profibus, Industrial Ehthernet etc.

Figure 3. Communications between elecrical motor and inverter

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Figure 4. Test motor

Figure 5. Test transmitter

References
/Aho/ Jero Ahola, Tuomo Lindh, Jarmo Partanen, Pertti Järventausta,Markku
Kauppinen. ”Data management system for DMS in industrial environment”,
DistribuTECH Europe 2000 (DA-DSM),10-12 October, 2000, Wien.

/Lin/ Tuomo Lindh, Jero Ahola, Jarmo Partanen. Oikosulkumoottorin laakerivian

tunnistaminen staattorivirtamittauksen perusteella, LTKK, TESLA-ohjelman
raportti 36/00, 2000.

/Sch/ R.R. Schoen, T. Habetler, "Motor bearing damage detection using stator current
monitoring", 1994 IEEE Industry application society annual meeting conference
proceedings.

/Wil/ Timothy Wild. Uudet tiedonsiirtotekniikat teollisuusympäristössä.Diplomityö,

LTKK,Energiatekniikan osasto, 2000.

/Yaz/ Yazici B., Kliman G. B. ”An adaptive statistical time-frequency method for
detection of broken bars and bearings faults in motor using.” IEEE Transactions
on industry applications, vol. 35, NO.2, March/April 1999.